The Wayward Houseguest
by kirathaune
Summary: AU. Sandy is a cranky, reluctant houseguest at his friends' Caribbean vacation home. What will happen when he encounters a lively local islander? 393
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter One, in which Harrison tries to get Sandy out of his beach chair...**

(This chapter rated T, future chapters M)

~.~

The mid-afternoon sun was annoyingly warm on Sandy's skin, and the gentle Bahamian breeze made his cigarettes burn out faster than usual. The ocean surf was mild today, but since the fucking house was right next to it all he could hear was gentle waves lapping against the sand and rocks of the private beach. He huffed and reached for the next report, cursing as he brushed a few grains of white sand off the cover.

"Really, Sandy, you could at least pretend to be enjoying yourself."

His friend Harrison set a glass of iced green tea on the table next to the lounger where Sandy had ensconced himself all afternoon. "We've been here for three days and all you've done is sit in that chair and read." He handed Sandy a bottle of sunblock. "Put on some sunblock, please? With that pale skin of yours, the last thing I need is for you to get sunburnt. I'm sure you'd never let me hear the end of it once we got back home."

"Thanks," Sandy grunted, taking the bottle. "You know, maybe this is all I want to do," he said he smoothed the lotion onto his skin. He set the sunblock down and reached for the frosty glass of tea. "You're the one who dragged my sorry ass here for vacation. I didn't say anything about wanting to come here; in fact, I'm sure I remember protesting loudly." He peered over his sunglasses at Harrison, blinking at the glare from the sun. "Why _do_ you always bug me to come along? I'm sure JoJo-" he drawled the double name mockingly, "-would much prefer to have you all to himself."

"_Joe,_" Harrison corrected, "has me to himself all the time, seeing that he lives with me. And don't remind me of that dreadful nickname, I just got him to stop introducing himself that way last year."

He sat down in the chair next to Sandy. "How long have we worked together, Sandy? Seven years? And I think we can agree that we've been good friends for at least five. Why wouldn't I want my good friend to come and stay at my vacation home? I've only been trying to get you here since I bought the place." Harrison waved his hand at the expanse of beach and ocean beyond the patio. "Look at this. White sand and warm turquoise waters a few steps from my back door. Quiet and private, but if we crave a little nightlife we can just head a few miles up the road into Freeport and enjoy the casinos and nightclubs." Harrison smiled at his reluctant guest. "Grand Bahama has a nice mix of both, and is close enough to Charlotte that Joe and I can come here quite often. And you can too, Sandy – I've told you countless times that you are always welcome to stay here, with or without us."

Sandy rolled his eyes and sipped his tea. "I've been busy. Busy running the company that pays you the salary that enabled you to buy your little love nest."

Harrison sighed. "Sandy, you work very hard. Too hard, in my opinion, and it seems like that's all you do, especially since..." he hesitated when Sandy shot him a sharp look, "well, since your father passed away. You very ably stepped into his position at the company, but I think you have taken it too far. You need to relax and enjoy yourself once in awhile, and I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that Sanderson would not be happy to see you this way."

Sandy said nothing.

"It's been four years. The company's doing fine - there's no need for you to work the hours you do. Was that trip to Europe the last enjoyable thing you did?" His friend's tone softened. "You are allowed to enjoy life, Sandy. I do so wish you would."

Silence.

Harrison got up from the chair and waggled a finger at him. "That's it. We're taking you with us into Freeport tonight. No arguments."

Sandy gave a sigh of his own. Harrison was being stubborn, and the bastard could be tenacious when he got that way. A terrific quality when he was in corporate-lawyer mode, not so much when he was trying to bend Sandy to his good-intentioned will. "All right," he said, conceding defeat. "But I will not be seen with you if Joe is still wearing those idiotic cornrows. No redheaded white man has any business wearing cornrows."

"I completely agree, and I gave Joe considerable incentive to take them out."

"Hunh. No sex until he does?"

"Precisely." Harrison flashed a small, infinitely evil smile and started to walk back toward the cottage. "I expect you to be ready at six to go to dinner with us, Sandy," he called back over his shoulder. "We'll find a nice restaurant and then go to the casino."

Sandy glared sullenly at his best friend's back as he watched him walk away, and he threw the report on the flagstone floor of the patio in a fit of pique.

He hated it when Harrison brought up Sanderson. Sandy had had enough of his father bugging him when he was alive, so he really didn't need Harrison to take over for the old man. He lit another cigarette and tried to not hear Sanderson's voice as it rose from his memories.

_Stop working so hard, Sandy. We're doing fine._

_Sandy, there's more to life than work. Get out there and date! Look how happy Harrison is with Joe.  
_  
_Son, you act like an old man, and you're only twenty-four. Go and have some fun for once. Please?_

So what had happened when he had finally caved and let his father send him to Europe for a three week trip? The bastard had gone and died of a heart attack while he was away.

Sandy took a long drag off his cigarette. He was just fine the way he was, thank you. He enjoyed things. He enjoyed the success of his company. He enjoyed drinking a good single-malt whisky and smoking a cigarette. And while he would never, ever admit it to them, he enjoyed his friendship with Harrison and, God help him, Joe.

The rest was unnecessary. He had the occasional lover here and there - more like one-offs, really - but Sandy wasn't interested in getting _involved_ with anyone.

He took another puff from his cigarette and then ground it out in the ashtray. Maybe he should just go ahead and let Harrison "socialize" him for the rest of their stay. It wasn't completely horrible here, and it would definitely get his friend off his back for awhile. He glanced at his watch. Four-thirty. Might as well go in, check his emails and take a shower so he could be ready by six - Harrison could be a scary bastard when he got tenacious, and Sandy did not count it outside the realm of possibility that his friend would come in and dress him if he wasn't ready.

With a yawn he got up and stretched. Picking up the pile of reports from the patio floor, he dusted them off and reached down to snag the glass of tea. He took a long drink from the glass and then walked up the steps toward the cottage.

~.~.~.~.~

Dinner had been nice enough, way too much food and plenty of local beer at a little Greek place named Zorba's in the Freeport marketplace. The chicken-kebabed souvlaki and eggplant moussaka had been excellent, but Sandy was a sucker for sweets and their flaky, honey-drizzled baklava quickly entered his Top Ten Desserts list.

Then they had headed over to one of the casinos. After playing around at the slot machines Harrison and Joe had settled themselves at the craps table and soon had a tidy pile of winnings. Sandy wasn't much for craps or roulette, though, so he had quickly became bored watching them play. He'd gone off on his own and done pretty well at one of the blackjack tables, but when a pushy platinum blonde got too persistent in her flirtations - trying to run her hand up his leg - Sandy had collected his winnings, tipped the dealer and told the woman to keep her fucking hands to herself.

And they wondered why he never wanted to go out. At least he could smoke here - all the places back home were fucking smoke-free. So he lit up a cigarette and wandered through the casino, restless.

He passed by several restaurants. He was still full from dinner, so he kept walking. There was a blast of techno music from the _Loco-Motion_ nightclub over to his left. No fucking way was he going in there, so he moved on. He was walking past one of several lounges when he heard jazz music wafting over the noise of clanking, ringing slot machines. He looked up at the sign. _Aqua Vitae_. Curious, he walked in.

It was a welcome change in atmosphere. The walls were wood-paneled, and the lounge was lit by a firefly-like assortment of glowing art glass lamps that hung from the low, beamed ceiling. The bar itself had a distinctly _art nouveau_ flair to it; carved wood and curving, gleaming brass, and behind the bar was a shimmering glass mosaic reproduction of Gustav Klimt's _The Tree of Life_. When Sandy walked toward the bar the music became louder, and he noticed a jazz trio playing over in one corner. He settled into a chair near the end of the bar, and as the music began to relax him he wondered if Harrison knew about this place.

The bartender approached. He was a tall, broad-shouldered Bahamian, and Sandy absently noted that his immaculately coiled dreadlocks put Joe's late lamented cornrows to shame.

"Welcome to _Aqua Vitae._ What can I get for you?"

Sandy scanned the dizzying array of single-malt whiskies on the long shelf beneath the mosaic. "The Lagavulin Sixteen, neat."

The man smiled and set a squat, tulip-shaped glass in front of him. "'Smoke in a glass.' It would be a crime to bring water anywhere near it." He poured a few ounces of golden-amber liquid into the glass.

Sandy grasped the glass by its thick stem and raised it to the bartender. "Nice to know there are some intelligent people around here." He took a generous sip of the whisky and closed his eyes as he savored the smoky-peat aroma of the drink.

"Heya, Gary, can I get a draft? Doug's out of Kalik in the club, an' I wanted ta grab a pint before I hafta do my next shift." A perky voice piped up to his right.

An elbow bumped into Sandy's arm, and the motion jarred his glass. "Oh, mister, m'sorry! I didn't make ya spill your drink, did I? I can buy ya another if I did."

Sandy opened his eyes and turned to view the source of the perkiness. It was a kid, a teenager from the look of him, with a shock of spiky brown hair and amber-brown eyes. Eyes that were the exact shade of the liquid that was settling back into the bottom of his glass.

"No harm done." Sandy said, and he smirked at the kid's offer of a replacement drink. "You shouldn't be so quick to offer me a new drink, it's twenty-five bucks a glass." What the hell was a kid doing in a casino? And ordering a beer?

"Whoa. Twenty-five bucks?" The young man stared at Sandy with those wide, whisky-colored eyes, and then he blurted, "Damn, you're pretty." He blushed and clapped a hand over his mouth, uttering a muffled "Omigod, m'sorry!"

"Jesus, Gavin." The bartender's shoulders were shaking with ill-concealed mirth while he drew a pint of amber lager from the tap.

"M'really sorry!"

Sandy snorted at the outburst and raised an eyebrow at the bartender. "You can get in a lot of trouble, serving minors. Or idiots, for that matter. Looks like Junior here should have a Shirley Temple instead."

"Hey! M'not a kid!" the young man protested hotly, but then his curiosity got the better of him. "What's a Shirley Temple?"

Sandy's smirk turned into an evil grin. "Make him one. It's on me."

The bartender laughed and replied, "Sure thing. It's a kiddie drink, Gav." He poured some lemon-lime soda over ice in a rocks glass, added a splash of grenadine syrup and then garnished it with an orange slice and a maraschino cherry. He slid the drink toward the younger man.

"A kiddie drink? You're buying me a kiddie drink." A barbell-pierced, chestnut-brown eyebrow raised at him in disbelief. "Oh, and _your_ twenty-five-dollar-a-glass scotch is soooo mature. That shit tastes like burnt ass."

Sanzo raised an eyebrow of his own at the little smartass next to him. "You afraid to drink it?" he jeered.

Gavin stuck his tongue out at him, then raised the glass to his lips for a taste. "Kinda sweet, but not bad." He downed the rest, ate the fruit and then popped the cherry stem into his mouth.

Sandy watched, fascinated, as the younger man's mouth pursed and pressed. On closer inspection, it was obvious that Gavin was in his early twenties, and Sandy noticed more piercings on that handsome, mobile face. A nose stud winked at him when Gavin scrunched his nose in concentration, and there were a good half dozen rings and studs in his ears. Sandy was also pretty sure he had seen the flash of a tongue stud a minute earlier.

It made him wonder where else Gavin had piercings.

Then he wondered why he was wondering about Gavin's possible other piercings.

Gavin's mouth halted, and then he pulled the cherry stem from between his lips and set it on Sandy's napkin. "It wasn't bad, but I think I'll stick ta beer." His gaze met Sandy's, and there was frank interest in his eyes. "I gotta go back ta work, but it was nice ta meet ya. Thanks for the drink." He picked up his beer, nodded his thanks to the bartender and ambled back to the casino floor. Sandy watched until he disappeared into the same nightclub he had passed earlier, and then he looked at his napkin.

The cherry stem had three neat knots in it.

Sandy suddenly had too much saliva in his mouth.

The bartender leaned over the counter to peer at the napkin. "Hunh, _three_ knots. I've never seen him do three knots before." He picked up the empty glass, dumped out the ice and started washing it. "Gav usually only does those at our staff parties, when there's a contest. As you can see, he usually wins."

Sandy finally swallowed. "He works here?" he managed.

The big islander nodded in the direction of the nightclub Gavin had just entered. "He's one of the deejays over there at _Loco-Motion_." Another patron sat down further down the bar, and the man left Sandy to tend to his new customer. Sandy picked up the knotted stem and put it in his pocket.

Sandy enjoyed the music for awhile, smoked a few cigarettes and had a second drink, then he paid his tab and left the lounge. He intended to go back to the table games room, but before he realized what he was doing he was standing just inside the front entrance of _Loco-Motion,_ glass in hand.

The nightclub was unbearably loud, both to his ears and eyes. Flashing, multicolor lights and strobe effects pulsed in time to the driving beat of the electronic, highly-synthesized music. Sandy squinted against the harsh lights as he scanned the room, looking for Gavin even though he really didn't know why he was looking.

And there he was, up on a raised platform in the far corner of the room, surrounded by speakers and equipment. A vinyl banner attached to the mixing console proclaimed him as "DJ Stone Monkey, voted Best Deejay in Freeport".

Stone Monkey! Sandy smirked behind his glass. He was a monkey all right. Gavin was hopping around his platform, mixing music, dancing and occasionally leaning into his microphone to urge the patrons to dance as well. Which they did - Sandy could barely see the dance floor for all the gyrating bodies. He leaned against the wall; he was fine right where he was, thank you. He glanced back up at the platform.

Gavin was staring at him.

Sandy shifted, his stance taking on a bit of defiance. _Yeah, I'm here. So what?_

The young man grinned, then disappeared behind his equipment.

Sandy lit a cigarette and took a long swallow of his whisky. He wasn't entirely sure why he was here, why he was _still_ here - the place was a migraine waiting to happen.

Then Gavin's spiky-haired head popped back up from behind the speakers, and as he faded the music out he pressed his mouth against the microphone. "Great moves, guys! I've got another awesome song for ya, an' m'sendin' it out ta the sexiest pair of purple eyes I've ever seen in my life."

A techno remix of the classic song _Smoke Gets In Your Eyes_ started reverberating through the club, and in spite of himself Sandy laughed at the monkey's cheek. He raised his glass in a mock-salute, and took another sip.

Lips pressed against the microphone again. "C'mon, people, dance! Show me your moves, I'll show ya mine."

The crowd cheered and began to dance. Gavin began to dance, too, and as the young man gyrated on the platform Sandy found he couldn't take his eyes off of him. Gavin was wearing a black, sleeveless mesh shirt and black jeans, and Sandy watched him raise toned, muscled arms above his head and clap his hands to the beat. Through the mesh Sandy could see that the rest of that compact body was just as toned and muscular, and when Gavin started rocking his belt-laden hips Sandy felt heat start to pool in his groin.

Whisky-gold eyes locked with his, and they told Sandy that this sensuous dance was just for him.

Sandy was suddenly thirsty, and he lifted his glass for a generous swallow of his drink. The whisky burned its way down to his belly, where it joined another fire, one that was starting to make his jeans uncomfortably tight.

He laughed at himself while he knocked back the last of his drink. How fucking pathetic was he, that he was standing here getting hot and bothered and _hard_ just from watching this guy dance? And oh fuck, he was hard... harder than he'd been in a long, long time. All from watching a monkey wiggle his ass.

He needed another drink.

He left the nightclub and walked back over to _Aqua Vitae,_ where he sat back down in his original chair and put his empty glass in front of him.

"He's a pretty good deejay, isn't he?" It was Gary, the bartender, and he splashed some more Lagavulin into Sandy's glass. "Good dancer, too."

Sandy took the glass wordlessly, and downed the contents in one gulp.

Gary leaned toward Sandy and murmured, "He's stuck here for the rest of the night on a double shift, his replacement called out. Just so you know."

Sandy turned toward him to tell him to mind his own fucking business, but the bartender was already halfway down the bar. He tossed a handful of bills on the bar and went off in search of Harrison and Joe.

TBC…


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two, where Sandy develops a sudden interest in Jazz...**

~.~

"D'ya think maybe he got sunstroke today, Har?" Joe asked while the three of them walked to the rental car that was parked next to the cottage. "Mister Homebody actually _asked_ me if we were going to the casino tonight." Joe pressed the back of his hand against Sandy's forehead, laughing as Sandy scowled and knocked his hand away. Joe then tugged on the tail of Sandy's untucked crimson dress shirt and snickered. "And look, he's all dressed up! Oooooh, a couple of buttons undone too. I wonder if he..." his voice deepened to a sultry drawl, "_met_ someone last night." He opened the driver's side door and slid into the seat. "We did leave him alone in the casino without a babysitter."

Harrison smiled at Sandy across the roof of the car and eyed him with mild speculation. "It is rather unusual behavior. Welcome, but unusual." He opened his door and got into the car next to Joe.

"Fuck you," Sandy retorted as he yanked open the back door and climbed into the back. "The two of you have been riding my ass about going out with you at night, and when I finally do you give me a bunch of shit?"

"Now, Sandy, Joe's only teasing, and you had your fun with Joe's cornrows. You do look very nice."

"Fuck you."

There was a snort of laughter from the front seat. "Betcha a dollar, Harrison, that he won't be coming home with us tonight."

Another speculative green gaze slid Sandy's way. "Hmmm. I might bet a dollar that he met someone, but I'm not sure that I would go so far as to bet that he would be leaving with them."

Sandy huffed. "Are you morons finished?" He leaned back in the leather seat, crossed his arms and glared at them both. "At ten o'clock there's going to be a jazz trio playing at the lounge I was in last night." Which was technically true - he had noticed the placard upon entering _Aqua Vitae_ the night before, it had just gone completely out of his head when he had encountered Gavin. Ten-_thirty_ happened to be the time that Gavin had been between shifts last night, but there was no way in hell that Sandy was sharing _that_ piece of information.

"_Aqua Vitae?_" Harrison queried.

"Yeah."

"Oh, that's a lovely place. The mosaic behind the bar is a stunning piece of artwork. I'm not surprised you ended up there, what with their admirable selection of single-malts - I won't even bother asking if they had your Lagavulin. They have live jazz now?"

"Tonight they do. That is, if chauffeur-boy here can be bothered to get us to the casino." Sandy pushed his foot against the back of Joe's seat.

"Hey! Sorry, dude," Joe apologized, and he started the car. He then pointed a finger at Harrison. "No, we are not going there with him. And don't give me that face - there's a poker tournament tonight, and you promised you'd enter it with me."

Sandy sat perfectly still in the back seat, kept a straight face and thought very loud _noyoucan'tgowithme_ thoughts.

Harrison sighed. "Yes, I promised. We'll have to see if they will be playing again before we leave." He nodded a silent apology to Sandy, then turned to face forward in the seat.

Sandy remained silent during the trip to Freeport, staring sightlessly out the window and wondering what the hell he would even say to Gavin if he ran into him again. What was it about that smartassed, pierced little punk that drew him so strongly anyway? It wasn't just Gavin's obvious interest; Sandy was used to having both sexes find him attractive. Most of the others had at least been subtle about it - _"Damn, you're pretty"_ had all the subtlety of a sledgehammer. Sandy smirked, remembering the horrified look on the younger man's face when the compliment had slipped out. Gavin might not be the most intelligent person he had met, but there was a natural sensuality to his manner that Sandy had to admit was very appealing. And, if he were honest, he would admit that maybe he was drawn to Gavin because the handsome young man was everything he was not - carefree, happy and full of _life_.

And he was a fucking sexy little thing, too. Sandy had lain awake in bed last night, dick in hand, staring at the knotted cherry stem and fantasizing about all the different things that Gavin's talented tongue could do to him.

~.~.~.~.~

The jazz trio was certainly worth listening to again, even if it wasn't the real reason he was there. Sandy swirled the whisky in his glass and glanced toward the door again. No Gavin yet, and it was almost eleven. Sandy thought he had remembered the overheard conversation correctly, and he figured that even if Gavin didn't have a double tonight he would be able to catch him at the beginning or end of his proper shift.

"Ready for another?" Gary, on the other hand, was present for his shift behind the bar, and at Sandy's nod he splashed some more Lagavulin into his glass. He left to serve some other customers, and then he returned to where Sandy sat, fixing Sandy with a quiet, appraising gaze.

Sandy returned the stare impassively. "What?"

"You maybe hoping to run into Gavin?"

Sandy tapped the ash off his cigarette while he took a generous sip of his drink. "What if I am?"

One side of the big islander's mouth quirked in a smile. "Then I'd say I'm afraid you're out of luck. Boss-man was happy that Gavin covered that shift at _Loco_ last night, and he asked Gav to cover a shift in the kitchen tonight at _Blue Holes,_" Gary said, pointing out an upscale gourmet restaurant that took up a large chunk of the second level. "Gav jumped at the chance, he's been trying to get into _Blue Holes_ for almost a year now. He wants to be a chef."

_Shit._ Sandy looked down at his glass in an effort to conceal his disappointment. There wouldn't even be a chance of seeing him if he was back in the kitchen.

Gary reached into his pocket and pulled out a folded slip of notepaper. He set it on the bar counter and slid it toward Sandy. "He was hoping you'd be here tonight. He asked me to give this to you."

Sandy reached out to take the paper, but Gary's fingers remained firm on the other edge. He looked up at the other man with a frown.

The bartender's eyes were serious. "I want to tell you that he's never asked me to do something like this before - give a note to someone, I mean."

_In other words, my friend's not a player,_ Sandy thought, and raised an eyebrow at him. "Okay, I get the message." He hesitated, then continued, "For what it's worth, this kind of shit is new for me too."

Gary nodded, and then he released the paper and walked down to the other end of the bar, leaving Sandy alone with his drink and his note.

Sandy opened it. The message looked like it had been scrawled quickly, and the handwriting was atrocious.

_Hi!  
I'm glad you came. I wish I didn't have to work, but me getting to cook at Blue Holes is real important.  
I'm off tomorrow. I'll be at Gold Rock Beach late tomorrow afternoon, it would be really cool if you could be there too.  
I wish I knew your name.  
Gavin  
_  
Sandy folded the note and slipped it inside his wallet. He then reached for his drink, downed the contents, and set the glass down with a slightly shaky hand. This was not something he did. He didn't meet deejaying chef-wannabes at bars, practically drool while they tied cherry stem knots with their tongues for him, get hard while he watched them dance and then get sloppy, breathless notes from them. He certainly didn't meet them on a beach, gold or otherwise.

_Fuck_. He raised his head to look for Gary, and was startled to see the big man already standing in front of him, refilling his glass. "Where's Gold Rock Beach?" he asked.

Another half-smile. "I can get you a flier that has a map. It's a cool place, when the tide goes out the current of the water leaves ripple patterns in the sand. When did he say to go?"

Sandy had to pull out the note and check. "He didn't say a time, just 'tomorrow afternoon.'"

Gary gave a short laugh. "Idiot. He doesn't realize that not everyone memorizes tide charts." He looked at the ceiling while he thought for a moment, and then he looked back at Sandy. "If he said late afternoon, you should try and get there before four."

"What the hell difference does the time make?"

Gary shrugged. "After five or so, the tide will come in and there will be no beach. And I mean _no_ beach - the tide comes completely in, right up to the barrier dunes. Look for Gold Rock, that's where he'll be, I'm sure of it. That's where he got his DJ name from - years ago one of our friends called him Stone Monkey because he likes to sit on top of Gold Rock and watch the tides."

"Gold Rock."

The bartender nodded. "You can't miss it. Big rock. Looks gold at sunset." He reached below the counter and withdrew a tourist flier, handing it to Sandy. "Here. At the hour he can meet you, you'd need to do the last tour, or take a rental car or cab there."

Sandy took the flier, folded it and shoved it in his back pocket. He took some cash out of his wallet to settle his tab, and added a generous tip. "Thanks."

"No problem. You want me to tell him you're coming?"

Sandy shook his head.

Gary gave him a another appraising look, then left him alone.

Sandy brushed the note with his fingers. The little shit had obviously been sure he was going to be here tonight, so he probably knew that Sandy would be there on the beach tomorrow afternoon. He re-folded the note, then put the knotted cherry stem inside it and tucked them both back inside his wallet. He took his drink and left the lounge.

He went up to the second level and stood outside the entrance of _Blue Holes,_ waving the maître d' away when the man approached him. The walls facing him were floor-to-ceiling saltwater tanks, and the crystal-clear waters were filled with colorful tropical fish. Sandy peered through to the main dining room and then took a peek at the menu. The monkey was ambitious - this place was definitely _haute cuisine_. He headed over to the table games area, and when he reached the poker table where Harrison and Joe were sitting, he stood behind them and peered at Joe's hand.

"That's a shit hand," he remarked.

Half the table raised.

Joe cursed and glared up at him. "Thanks so much for telling everyone, asshole. What the fuck are you doing here?" He turned to the dealer. "Fold," he said, and tossed his cards on the table.

Sandy shrugged. "The trio finished." He glanced at the dealer. "Can I get in on this?"

The dealer nodded. "After this round finishes, sir."

A half hour later the round finished, and Sandy paid his buy-in and joined his friends at the table. Harrison leaned over toward Joe and commented, "Joseph, I believe you owe me a dollar." He waved at the cocktail waitress and held up his empty wineglass.

Joe held out his hand to Sandy. "Seeing as you cost me that hand back there, Mister Bigmouth, I think _you_ owe _me_ a dollar."

Sandy smirked at him and handed over a dollar bill, which Joe presented to Harrison with a flourish.

Harrison's gaze slid his way, and Sandy wondered if his friend was going to ask for another dollar, for he had really won twice.

But Harrison merely smiled as he took his glass of wine from the waitress and said, "So, tell me about the jazz trio. What kind of set did they play?"

_Fuck_. Harrison suspected something. Fortunately for Sandy, the dealer started the next round.

TBC...


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter Three, in which Sandy goes to see a Monkey on a Stone**

**~.~  
**  
Sandy ground out his spent cigarette under his heel, lit another one and then shoved his hands in his pockets, scuffing the dirt with a shoe while he waited for the tour van. He'd called the phone number on the _Grand Lucaya Tours_ flier that morning, and managed to over-pay for a spot on the last tour of the day. Some conversation and a little bit more over-payment saved him a trip into Freeport - they were going to pick him up at the corner where Harrison's access road met the main boulevard. Fortunately, it hadn't been too long of a walk to the road, and he'd managed to duck out while the two idiots were out frolicking in the ocean.

Sandy was just finishing his cigarette when a dusty green mini-bus pulled up, a magnetic sign on the door identifying them as _Grand Lucaya Tours_. A very large black man got out and came over to shake Sandy's hand. "You Sandy? I'm Junior. You all paid up, man, come on in." He gestured to the door. Sandy went up the steps and sat next to an elderly woman in the front row of seats, and then Junior hopped back in with surprising grace and got them on their way.

Unfortunately (for Sandy) the tour included a side-trip to Lucaya Caverns, and Junior refused to let him stay behind in the bus. So he shuffled along with the other dozen or so people on the tour, rolling his eyes while they oohed and aahed and took pictures during their guided tour of one of the larger caverns. Sandy grudgingly agreed that yes, it was kind of interesting that one of the world's largest underwater cave systems was beneath the island. And yes, it was sort of beautiful - in a fucking weird, otherworldly way - to see the jagged-toothed ceiling of the cavern reflected in the luminous blue-green waters of the underground pools that dotted the main chamber.

He found that listening to the Bahamian lilt of Junior's voice while the man told them about the park was curiously calming.

Sandy was... nervous. And he was highly annoyed that he was nervous. He was twenty-eight years old and the head of a good-sized, successful corporation, for fuck's sake - he should not have butterflies in his stomach over meeting some punk-assed little monkey. He'd met people in nightclubs before, it was no big deal. Go home with them, have a good fuck (or not), leave and then everything goes back to normal. But this didn't feel like normal. This felt like the edge of a precipice. And he wanted to smoke but he was in a fucking cave.

Junior soon herded them out of the cavern to go back in the mini-bus and then they continued on toward Gold Rock Beach.

Ten minutes later, they were all walking along a winding, boardwalked trail through a mangrove marsh because the other fucking tourists didn't want to take the quicker, easier "Gold Rock Bridge". They all voted for the "scenic route", so Sandy once again was forced to follow along, sullenly this time because _again_ he wasn't allowed to smoke. Fucking protected wetlands.

At this point Sandy had to admit it was a good thing that Harrison made him pack a pair of hiking shoes, what with all the walking.

They walked for another fifteen minutes, and soon the boardwalk planks beneath his feet turned to the crunch of pine needles as they entered the forest through a narrow trail. Sandy was surprised by all the pine trees, he was expecting something more... well, tropical. If it weren't for the sand mixed with the pine needles and the sound of the ocean to his left, Sandy would almost think these were the same kind of North Carolina woods that he and his father used to hike through when he was a kid. The trail began to widen, and suddenly they were in a shaded clearing, and before them were the shimmering turquoise waters of the ocean, and the white sands of Gold Rock Beach. The retreating tide had created row after row after row of undulating ripples in the pristine sand of the beach, stretching out as far as the eye could see.

There were exclamations of "Cool!", "Neat!" and "How beautiful!" as the other tourists dug in their packs for their cameras and hurried out into the sun. Sandy stayed where he was and simply stared at the vista in front of him while he lit a craved-for cigarette. The beach wasn't "cool". It wasn't "neat". It was fucking amazing, and he freely admitted it. Not aloud, of course.

And Gary was right, you couldn't miss the rock. It wasn't sunset yet, of course, but the sun was low enough in they sky that there was an ocher tinge to the formation out in the middle of the water. On top of the rock, a young man sat cross-legged, facing out to sea. The Stone Monkey.

_Gavin.  
_  
The stupid fucking fluttering came back in his stomach. Sandy ground his teeth and walked over to where Junior was sitting on a picnic bench and handed the man some bills. "Thanks for bringing me here."

Junior grinned and pocketed the tip. "Sure thing, man. You sure you don't wanna come the rest of the way? I'm taking 'em to another little beach that has great shells an' stuff. My Gran, she has a place there, she make the best cracked conch fritters on the island."

"No thanks, I'll be fine."

The man looked around. "Your friend here? I don't wanna leave you alone." At Sandy's nod, Junior squinted and noticed the figure on the rock. "Oh, you know Gavin? But he don't have no car, man, just a little scooter. He prob'ly walk here. How you gettin' back where I got you?"

Sandy shrugged. "I'll call a taxi."

Smiling widely, Junior dug a card out of his pocket and held it out to Sandy. "We got that too. Junior come and get you, anytime."

_Not a bad idea._ Sandy took the card and put it in his wallet.

Junior looked back out at the rock, and then he grinned again at Sandy. "I bet he cookin' dinner for you, right? He ask my Gran for some nice fresh cracked conch for pickin' up this afternoon. Gavin, he a good cook, a real good cook." He got up from the bench and called for the tourists to gather together.

Sandy left him and the others and started walking to the narrow strip of beach. He stopped just at the sand's edge, took off his socks and shoes and tied the laces together, then he rolled up the hems of his jeans and set out across the beach. He almost regretted marring the perfect rows of wavy sand.

Out on the rock, Gavin turned to face the shore. When he saw Sandy he hopped up and waved, and even from a distance Sandy could see the wide smile on his face. There was a splash as Gavin jumped into the water, and he was soon swimming toward Sandy. When he reached the shallows he stood and shook the water from his hair, and then he bounded over to where Sandy was standing.

"You came." Gavin's smile almost rivaled the sun. Rivulets of water streamed down his bare chest, and Sandy's gut clenched when he saw a curved barbell in Gavin's navel, right below a tattoo of a wavy, four-pointed sun.

Sandy took a calming drag off his cigarette, then exhaled a cloud of smoke off to the side. "Sandy," he said.

Gavin laughed. "Yeah, it's sandy." He twirled around, arms flung wide. "The whole beach is sandy! Aren't the patterns really cool?"

Sandy snorted. "That's my name, moron. You wanted to know my name, there it is."

"Sandy." Gavin smiled, his gaze flicking up to the top of Sandy's head. "Cuz your hair's blond?"

"No," Sandy said. "Because my father's name was Sanderson, and he named me Sanderson too. Then the old man decided that I needed a nickname because Sanderson sounds stupid on a little kid."

Gavin laughed again, and he reached out and took Sandy's free hand. "C'mon," he said, and he tugged Sandy along with him as he started walking along the beach. Sandy slung his shoes across his shoulder and followed. As they walked the incoming waves splashed over their bare feet, and Sandy stared at the damp hand that was entwined with his.

"Where are we going?" He figured he might as well ask.

"Back ta my house," Gavin replied. "I'm gonna cook ya dinner! You came with Junior's tour, didn't ya?" He waved over at the tourist group, and a dark brown hand waved back. "Junior's a great guide. His Gran gets the best, freshest conch on the island - I got some so I could make ya a real Bahamian dinner."

"You were that sure I would be here?" If the brat said yes he was going to be pissed.

Gavin's hand squeezed his. "No, but I hoped ya would." They reached a bend in the coastline and Gold Rock Beach disappeared from view behind them, leaving them alone on a wild stretch of beach. Gavin stopped then and released Sandy's hand, only to fist his hands in the front of Sandy's shirt, and he tilted up his chin and brushed his lips against Sandy's mouth. "Sandy," he breathed.

The invitation was too tempting. Sandy's shoes fell to the sand with a thud as he slid his fingers into Gavin's damp hair and brought that tantalizing mouth closer for more, groaning when Gavin's lips parted beneath his and a studded tongue made its way into his mouth. Sandy flicked his tongue against the stud, enjoying the muffled whimper-moan that rose from Gavin's throat. Gavin's hands clutched tighter at Sandy's shirt while their tongues explored each other's mouths.

The need for air soon presented itself, and Sandy broke off the kiss, catching his breath while he pressed his forehead against Gavin's. "Oh wow," Gavin panted, his moist breath mixing with Sandy's. "Been wantin' ta do that since the other night."

Sandy untangled one hand from Gavin's hair and brushed his thumb across a plump lower lip, his fingers splayed against Gavin's throat. "So you invited me home to... make dinner for me?" he murmured against Gavin's mouth.

"Well..." Gavin said in between light, nipping kisses, "that an' other stuff. Other stuff would be real nice. But I wanna cook for ya too."

Sandy let out a snort of laughter and took Gavin's mouth in another deep kiss, while Gavin's hands snaked up to twine around Sandy's neck. They stood there, mouths and bodies pressed close together, until Gavin pulled back and gasped, "Oh crap, the tide! We need ta get movin'."

Sandy looked down and saw that the water was lapping at their calves, and that his shoes were nowhere to be found.

_Shit._

_~.~.~.~.~_

Fifteen minutes later they stood in front of Gavin's house - if you could call the tiny, squat, cinder block structure a house. While Gavin fumbled through his pockets for his key, Sandy pressed against the younger man's back, brushing his hand over the quivering muscles of Gavin's bare stomach. His fingertips played with the barbell piercing in Gavin's navel, and he smirked when Gavin groaned and almost dropped the keychain in his hand.

After what seemed an eternity Gavin got the door open, flicked on the light switch and they went inside, at which point Sandy pushed Gavin up against the nearest wall, seeking his mouth, his jaw, his throat. Gavin let out a noise that sounded almost like a growl, and the sound went straight to Sandy's rapidly hardening dick. "Fuck dinner," he said roughly, scraping his teeth along Gavin's shoulder, and he brushed his hand over the generous bulge in the front of Gavin's cargo shorts.

"S-shit yeah, it c-can wait," Gavin agreed huskily, and his trembling hands fumbled with the buttons on Sandy's shirt while his mouth sought Sandy's earlobe. Several buttons pinged across the room as he dragged the shirt off and tossed it on the floor. He ran his hands greedily over Sandy's now-bare chest and back, and then he hooked his fingers into the belt loops of Sandy's jeans and tugged. "Over here," he whispered, and ran his tongue along the shell of Sandy's ear.

Sandy let himself be led a couple of feet across the small, single room until they were next to a twin-sized bed that obviously doubled for Gavin's sofa. Their mouths met again, and their hands bumped together as their fingers undid buttons and zippers. Gavin's still-damp cargo shorts and boxers slid to the floor, and Sandy's jeans soon followed. Then they were on the bed and there was nothing but skin on skin, hands and mouths on skin.

Sandy couldn't get enough of the taste of the salty sea-spray that still clung to Gavin's skin. He licked along delicate collar-bones, trailed his tongue along the dips in Gavin's sternum and worked his way over to lap at a taut, dusky nipple. When he drew it into his mouth and began to suck Gavin let out another throaty growl-groan and writhed underneath him, and Sandy felt the grittiness of sand as their feet tangled together. Gavin's hands were in his hair and Sandy felt the hard, insistent bump of Gavin's ample erection nudging against his stomach. Sandy pressed his own aching length against Gavin's hip to show he was just as hard, groaning at the pleasure the movement gave him. He rocked against Gavin again.

Gavin gasped and shifted, and suddenly Sandy was the one on his back. Now it was time for Gavin's mouth and hands to explore, starting with deep, ardent kisses and continuing with hungry nips and bites along Sandy's throat and shoulder. Gavin's mouth soon reached his nipple, and when a small steel ball rubbed against the tender flesh Sandy moaned and tangled his fingers in Gavin's hair, silently encouraging him to linger.

_Oh God, the tongue stud._ How could he have forgotten about the tongue stud?

Gavin looked up at him and smiled, his eyes dark with desire. "You're so fuckin' beautiful," he whispered, kissing Sandy while he took a small tube off the end table, and then he bent his head to lavish attention on Sandy's other nipple.

"D-don't say s-stupid things," Sandy managed, hissing in pleasure-pain when Gavin's teeth grazed the sensitive nub. He felt Gavin's lips curve up against his skin.

Gavin's tongue moved on to lick and tease its way down Sandy's chest, paused to swirl around Sandy's navel, then continued southward. When his mouth reached Sandy's dick it was Sandy's turn to writhe.

Sandy was starting to lose his grip on coherent thought. He was vaguely aware of an assortment of embarrassing noises issuing from his throat while he watched his dick disappear into Gavin's eager mouth, and his hips moved of their own volition when Gavin licked and rolled the steel stud along his length. Slicked fingers worked their way into him, thrusting and stretching until Sandy was aching with arousal - and the ache soon turned into heat that coursed through his body and sent him headlong into climax. A hoarse cry escaped Sandy as his orgasm ripped through him, and he arched his back and came hard into Gavin's mouth. Gavin's lips tightened around him, swallowing his release, and then they left his spent dick to run a trail of hot, wet kisses up Sandy's body while Gavin settled between his legs.

"Oh, Sandy," Gavin groaned as he began to slowly enter him. "Ohfuck, ohhhhh, Sandy."

Sandy watched the handsome face above his contort with pleasure while he enjoyed the delicious burn of Gavin's long, hard length pushing deep inside him. Soon Gavin's hips were pressed tight against Sandy's and the younger man took great gulping breaths as he struggled to keep himself under control. Sandy let him have a minute and then smirked up at him. "So, are you just going to stay there, or are you going to fuck me?" He rolled his hips.

"Nnnngh! Ohfuck," Gavin panted. "You're evil." He started to move, though, and all thoughts of teasing Gavin any further went out of Sandy's mind.

Everything else went out of Sandy's mind too, everything but Gavin. That perfect body, above him, inside him. And those eyes, dark as cognac, devouring him.

Gavin's body rocked against his, slowly at first and then faster, harder, and Sandy matched his thrusts while his hands roamed over Gavin's glistening, sweaty skin. His fingers glided along the knobs of Gavin's spine and then slipped down to delve into the cleft at the top of Gavin's ass. Sandy couldn't help but moan when Gavin started fucking him in earnest, snapping his hips and plunging so deeply inside him that Sandy wasn't sure where he ended and Gavin began. Gavin was even noisier, and every little gasp and grunt that spilled from his mouth only added to the heat that was blazing again in Sandy's groin. With a groan he came a second time, the slick warmth of his release spreading between their bodies, and warmth blooming deep in his belly as Gavin shuddered and stilled against him.

More warmth - this time from Gavin's mouth against his neck, softly panting his name.

It was a while before either of them wanted to move, content with languorous kisses and tangled limbs.

"Mmmph," said Gavin, his face buried in Sandy's neck. "Gotta get dinner goin'."

"Have fun with that," Sandy replied, although he continued to run his fingertips up and down Gavin's spine.

Gavin nipped his collarbone. "I mean it."

"Am I stopping you?" Sandy ghosted his fingers over the curve of Gavin's ass.

Gavin laughed. "You are an evil bastard," he said, and with a groan he moved away and got up from the bed. "M'gonna wash up real quick, then you can go after me while I make dinner." He crossed the tiny room and opened a dresser drawer, taking out a clean pair of boxers and a pair of knit shorts. "Here," he tossed the shorts to Sandy, "you can wear these, they're kinda big on me."

Sandy caught the clothing and watched Gavin disappear into the bathroom. Ignoring his body's complaints he reached for his jeans, fished out his cigarettes and lit one, and then he lay back down and inhaled deeply.

_Best. Fuck. Ever._ Especially considering that Sandy usually preferred to be the one fucking. He took another drag and then exhaled, watching the smoke waft above him. He vaguely thought about getting up and leaving - this _was_ about the time he would normally leave - but right now he just wanted to lay here and smoke.

By the time he started thinking about leaving again, Gavin had bounced out of the bathroom and announced that it was his turn.

Guess he'd leave after dinner, then.

When Sandy came out of the bathroom clad in Gavin's knit shorts, he saw the younger man busily cleaning and chopping conch at the little kitchenette on the far side of the little room. He lit a cigarette and sat back down on the bed, lounging against the cushions and enjoying the way Gavin's ass moved under his boxers as he worked. "So you weren't kidding about the making dinner part."

Gavin looked over at him and grinned. "Man's gotta eat." He wiped his hands on a towel and went to the refrigerator to take out two bottles of beer. He offered one to Sandy along with a dented ashtray and stole a lingering kiss before opening and taking a long drink from his own bottle. "M'hungry, aren't you?" Gavin went back to preparing their meal, and Sandy drank his beer and surveyed the room.

It was spare by way of furnishings. There was the bed-slash-sofa, with an end table off to one side. On the wall opposite was a dresser and a short bookshelf filled with - Sandy leaned forward to glimpse at some titles - cookbooks and cooking magazines. A television sat on top of the dresser, accompanied by a DVD player that was covered with a pile of TV cooking show videos, and a small table with two chairs took up the corner near the kitchenette. The tiny house was immaculately clean, but everything had the well-worn, mismatched look of items purchased in a second-hand shop. Almost everything - the pots and pans that hung from a rack above the chipped little stove gleamed, and even Sandy's inexperienced eye could tell they were of high quality and probably expensive.

"So you're into the whole chef thing, hunh?" Sandy took a long swig of his beer. "Then how come you're a deejay?"

A tanned, muscular shoulder lifted in a shrug. "Loco was the only place that had an openin' when I was old enough ta get a job at the casino. I cook part-time at this little place in the Freeport market, but it's a family restaurant an' I'm just a line cook. I really wanna go ta a good culinary school, an' ta do that I need a good recommendation - one from Blue Holes would be waaay better than one from Jimmie's Crab Shack, an' I have a better chance at gettin' into Blue Holes if m'already workin' at the casino." Deft fingers dipped and breaded bits of conch while Gavin continued, "I need the extra money anyways, ta save up for school. I get real good tips at Loco, an'-" he glanced back at Sandy with a crooked grin - "I meet cool people. I don't think I woulda met ya at Jimmie's." Oil sizzled as Gavin added the conch to a fry pan.

Sandy snorted. "You wouldn't have met me in Loco-Motion, either."

Gavin's grin deepened. "Then m'glad my friend Gary works at Aqua Vitae." He returned his attention to the fry pan. A few minutes later he came back over to the bed with a food-laden platter and two more beers.

"Here ya go." Gavin handed him a bottle, and then he set the plate between them and recited, "We have cracked conch lightly breaded with panko, accompanied by a trio of sauces - a whisky sauce, a tequila-lime sauce an' a mango-red pepper sauce."

Sandy smirked at the formal words, especially when the chef was sitting there just in his underwear. "What am I, the celebrity judge?"

"Shut up, I'm practicin'. Sorry about the chippy plate - one of my friends saves 'em for me so I can plate on nice dishes."

The plate was chipped on one edge, but the presentation was worthy of a magazine cover - flaky, pale-gold nuggets of conch were piled high in the center and were surrounded by three small bowls that held dipping sauces. A few lemon and lime wedges lay in between each bowl, and as Sandy peered more closely at the plate he noticed that Gavin had peeled the rinds into a series of wave-like curls.

"I want ya ta try it without the sauces first," Gavin said, and he picked up a bite-sized piece and held it up to Sandy's lips.

Sandy opened his mouth and allowed Gavin to feed him the steaming tidbit. He was surprised by how delicate it tasted- he'd had fried conch the day after their arrival at Joe's insistence and had found it heavy and so-so. This was like he was eating an entirely different food.

"Not bad," he allowed, accepting a second morsel from Gavin's fingers and following it with a generous swallow of beer. "You know, Junior said his grandmother's fried conch is the best on the island."

Gavin smirked. "Nah, mine is. Gran's is pretty good though, I learned a lot from her." He popped a piece into his own mouth, and then he selected another piece from the plate, dipped it into one of the sauces and proffered it to Sandy. "Here, try it with this sauce. It's mango an' roasted red pepper, somethin' I've been playin' around with."

"Which one is the whisky sauce? I want that one, even though it's probably shit whisky."

"Shut up. Eat this one first, then ya can have the whisky sauce - an' it's not shit whisky!"

Sandy muttered under his breath about demanding chefs and ate the bite of tender conch. The sauce was excellent, sweet with an underlying heat that made his taste buds water.

Gavin fed him another piece, watching his face and smiling as he helped himself to more. "Good, isn't it? That's my favorite. Here, try it with the tequila-lime."

"You said I could have the whisky one next."

"Stop complainin' an' eat."

The tequila-lime was also very good, and Sandy was struck by how different the conch tasted depending on the sauce. "Is this how you test your recipes?" Sandy batted Gavin's hand away from the plate, plucked some conch from the rapidly-disappearing pile and dunked it into the whisky sauce. "You bring unsuspecting men home to your place, fuck them and then feed them?" He ate the piece and almost groaned when the smoky-peat tang of the sauce hit his tongue. He went back for more.

"Ha ha, very funny." Gavin stuck his tongue out at him. "When I make new stuff I bring it in ta work for my friends ta try." He looked down and plucked at the bedspread, a faint blush coloring his cheeks. "You're the first guy I've brought here."

Sandy wasn't sure what to say to that, or what to think about the way his stomach clenched when Gavin said it. So instead of replying he picked up the last piece of conch, dipped it in each of the bowls, and held it out it to Gavin.

Gavin ate the bite of food, and then licked Sandy's fingers clean. "Mmmmm, that tasted real good with _all_ of 'em!" He laughed. "I haven't been able ta figure out which sauce would be best... I just put 'em all on the plate an' made it look nice."

Sandy shrugged. "Serve it with all three, then." He swirled a finger in the whisky sauce and smeared it on Gavin's nipple, then leaned over to lick it off.

Gavin let out a squeak. 'T-that's a g-good idea," he replied, his breath hitching with each swipe of Sandy's tongue. "Which one's y-your favorite?"

Sandy took the bowl of whisky sauce off the plate, scooped up another dollop and spread it on Gavin's other nipple. "Which do you think?" he asked, his mouth hovering over sauce-covered skin. This time he sucked the sauce off, which elicited an interesting noise from Gavin.

Gavin lost no time in grabbing the mango-pepper sauce and setting the plate on the floor, and Sandy was soon making noises of his own when Gavin pushed him back against the cushions, tipped the remaining contents of the bowl onto his stomach and began to slowly lap the sauce from his body.

Sandy threaded his fingers through Gavin's hair and enjoyed the moist slide of Gavin's tongue against his skin. _This feels so fucking good,_ he thought. Now he knew why people did this kind of shit, messy as it was. He had a nice buzz from the beer, warm arousal was building again in his groin, and there was the delicious sensation of his dick hardening beneath Gavin's cheek while the younger man tasted his navel. He took Gavin's hand and dragged several fingers through the last of the whisky sauce, raised the dripping digits to his mouth and leisurely sucked the smoky-sweet sauce from them.

A muffled moan rose from the vicinity of his stomach.

"Holyfuck, this is waaay better than with the conch." Gavin murmured as he licked the last bit of mango sauce off Sandy's belly. "Nnngh, Sandy." He looked up at Sandy, his eyes cognac-dark once more. "I wanna fuck ya again," he said, and he freed his fingers from Sandy's mouth to tug at the drawstring of Sandy's borrowed shorts.

"Oh yeah?" If their first time around was anything to compare by, Sandy was perfectly fine with the idea of doing it again. "So then fuck me."

The two bowls clattered to the floor. Underwear was quickly shucked, and soon Gavin's hungry mouth was roaming over Sandy's body again, teasing every sensitive spot with his tongue. Eager hands roused and caressed while they raised Sandy to his hands and knees, and soon Gavin's dick was back inside him, thrusting and pounding and driving Sandy to new heights of pleasure. They rocked together, gasping, moaning, and when Gavin's hand closed around his aching erection Sandy's climax rose and overtook him like a cloudburst. Gavin's name escaped from Sandy's lips as he came, his release pulsing over Gavin's stroking hand. Gavin shuddered and noisily followed him into orgasm, hips bucking as he emptied himself deep inside Sandy's body.

They collapsed together onto the mattress, and limbs twined together as mouths lazily kissed and licked and nipped until sleep took them.

~.~.~.~.~

Sandy sat on the edge of the bed in the dark, smoking a cigarette. Behind him, Gavin sprawled on the bed and snored peacefully, his arm stretched out over the empty spot where Sandy had lain sleeping ten minutes earlier.

Taking a swig of warm, leftover beer, Sandy mentally recounted the events of the day and wondered just where the hell his mind had been. He'd taken a fucking tour bus (and been forced to see a fucking cave and walk through a fucking swamp) to meet a monkey on a beach, walked along the beach with that same monkey, gone back to his house, had dinner (cooked for him! fed to him!) and then had been fucked within an inch of his life. Not necessarily in that order, and the fucking had happened twice. Most damning of all, he'd fallen asleep in the monkey's bed. In each other's arms.

It was almost like... a date. And not even a first date - from what he knew that kind of shit was second-third-fourth date material.

Sandy didn't do dates. Sandy met people at clubs or bars, fucked them, and went back home alone. Half the time he didn't bother to know their names, much less anything about them.

He certainly didn't eat home-cooked meals with any of them or actually _sleep_ with them.

Or... want to stay with them.

God help him, Sandy wanted to stay. He wanted to wake up next to that snoring face, wanted to have a leisurely morning fuck - shit, fuck each other all morning if they could. He wanted to bury his dick in that tight little ass and find out if it felt as perfect as it looked.

And then do it all over again the next day. And the day after that.

He _wanted_. And it scared the shit out of him.

Sandy huffed and shoved his spent cigarette into the empty beer bottle. It was all fucking pointless, anyway - they were leaving the day after tomorrow. He got up from the bed, wincing as sore muscles complained, and went into the bathroom to wash up and dress as quietly as he could.

When he came out he stood by the bed and watched Gavin sleep while he did up the remaining buttons of his shirt. Gavin was such a bundle of contradictions... a seemingly carefree, fun-loving guy who had serious ambitions and worked his ass off. A bold, cheeky monkey who pursued him aggressively yet blushed when admitting Sandy was the first man he'd brought home with him. And a young man with such boyish innocence who was the most ravenous, fucking amazing lover he'd ever had.

The desire to crawl back into that bed was overwhelming. He reached out and brushed a finger along a smooth, youthful cheek. Gavin sighed, and his hand twitched on the sheet. "Hhnnn... Sandy..."

Sandy yanked his hand back like he had been bitten. What the hell was he doing? This had been a mistake - he shouldn't have stayed as long as he had. This was supposed to be just like every other time, fuck and leave. Well, he had been fucked all right, and he needed to leave.

Now. While he still could.

He took one last glance at the sleeping young man, and then he silently slipped out of the little house and dug Junior's card out of his wallet.


	4. Chapter 4

Yellow. His face was being attacked by yellow. Sandy's eyes cracked open, and he glared at the mid-morning sun that was shining through the window. He raised his wrist and blearily peered at his watch, sighing when he saw that it was almost ten. Between the fucking sun and the goddamn birds making a racket outside the window there was no way he could sleep any longer. He rolled over, slightly disoriented. For a few panicked seconds he thought he was still in Gavin's bed, but then he remembered the taxi ride back to Harrison's house and the barefooted walk down the access road. He shifted under the sheets, frowning when he felt the grittiness of sand around his feet. _Shit._ So much for trying to stay in bed.

Sandy sat up, wincing as his body complained at the movement. He wasn't surprised he was sore - he hadn't been fucked in a good number of years and last night they had been hungry and passionate. He idly wondered what Gavin was doing this morning. He wondered what Gavin would have _done_ to him this morning. An image of Gavin drizzling pancake syrup over him flashed through Sandy's mind and he groaned.

_Shit_. He needed to stop thinking about Gavin. Sandy got up and headed for the shower.

He was drying his hair with a towel when he caught a whiff of fresh coffee and heard the sizzle of bacon cooking. He tugged on his jeans, pulled a t-shirt over his head and ambled into the kitchen, where he found Harrison filling a plate with bacon, eggs and fried potatoes. Sandy slid onto one of the chairs at the kitchen island and grunted his thanks when a steaming mug of coffee was handed to him.

"Good morning, Sandy," Harrison said as he pushed a food-laden plate toward Sandy. "I'm a little surprised you're up this early, what with your late evening and all." Green eyes twinkled mischievously.

Sandy drank his coffee and muttered something about stupid goddamn birds and people who needed to mind their own goddamn business. He stabbed his fork into the eggs and started eating.

"Oh ho! There's the prodigal friend!" Joe slapped Sandy on the back as he came into the room and plopped into the chair next to him. "When did you get in, the ass-crack of dawn? Look at him eat, Har, our boy must've gotten a workout." Joe held his hand out, palm side up, across the granite tabletop. "Harrison, I do believe you owe me that dollar back. I think Sandy here got _lucky_ last night."

Harrison shook his head and smiled behind his coffee mug. "I'm sorry, Joe. That bet was only good two nights ago - last night was not covered under the bet. Perhaps next time you should not be so specific."

"Fuck you both," Sandy growled. "You two can keep your depraved ideas to yourselves."

Joe sniggered. "I've got plenty of ideas. You disappear, are gone ALL DAY and then you stroll in at o'dark thirty in the morning, tracking sand all over the place? That gives a man ideas. And yeah, they're _depraved_."

Harrison handed Sandy a glass of orange juice. "I must admit, Sandy, that finding... um, _sandy_ footprints all over the floor this morning makes one wonder where you could have been that you... misplaced your shoes?"

Joe waved a fork in the air. "I know! I betcha he found a nice _jazzy_ piece of ass at the casino." He grinned and held the fork out of reach when Sandy tried to snatch it and stab him with it.

"Hmmm." Harrison looked over his glasses at Sandy. "That is actually quite possible. Our friend here _was_ rather insistent about getting to Aqua Vitae in time for the live jazz the other night."

"See! I'm right!" Joe moved to the other chair to get out of reach of Sandy's butter knife. "Doesn't explain the sand, but it wouldn't surprise me if Sandy was kinky like that. You gotta watch those uptight types."

"You DO realize I'm sitting right here?"

"Now, now," Harrison said, "this is all in good fun. If you _did_ meet someone last night, Sandy, I would be very glad to hear it. You deserve to enjoy yourself, you know... you're allowed. And you don't have to hide it from us - we're your friends."

"_You're_ my friend," Sandy retorted. "_He's_ a perverted pain in my ass."

"Hey!"

"All right, let's all just stop now." Harrison refilled their mugs. "We've got one more full day here, so let's enjoy it. A couple of our friends that live here on the island are coming over tonight for dinner - and I expect you to join us, Sandy, we've been looking forward to introducing you to them. But that's not until later. I was thinking we could pack a picnic lunch and drive over to Gold Rock Beach. It's really beautiful there, Sandy - the ocean waves make the most amazing ripple patterns in the sand when the tide is out. It's considered to be one of the most beautiful beaches in the world. Oh - there's underwater caverns on the island too, and there's a large one that's right near the beach, we can see it on the way."

Sandy inwardly groaned.

_Oh, fuck.  
_

So he saw the stupid fucking cave and the stupid fucking beach all over again.

At least this time around he could just feign an appreciative grunt at the cave and leave, and Joe voted for taking the Gold Rock Bridge shortcut instead of the mangrove trail.

Maybe Joe _was_ his friend.

It was a little weird at the beach when they ran into Junior's tour group. Sandy lagged behind the other two a bit, casually walked by Junior and slipped a twenty into the man's hand.

"You didn't see me here yesterday."

Junior chuckled. "Sure thing, man. Didn't see nobody." He pocketed the bill.

Sandy picked up his pace to catch up with his friends, grateful that there were no monkeys sitting on any rocks.

~.~.~.~.~

It was just as well they were staying in tonight, Sandy thought while he dried off from his second shower of the day. It would have been awkward to be at the casino and run into Gavin. Or Gary, for that matter.

Apparently dinner was going to be a cooperative sort of of thing; Harrison was grilling some steaks but the guests were bringing dishes too. Sandy was glad he didn't have to contribute any food - his cooking skills stopped at boiling ramen and punching the buttons on the microwave. He had sprung for the booze, though, and had made nice with Joe by buying him a case of his crap beer. So tonight he would meet the friends, have dinner, maintain a minimum acceptable level of sociability for an hour or two then plead a headache or some other bullshit and go to bed.

And then tomorrow they would go the hell home and he would try and forget about both last night _and_ Gavin.

Sandy finished buttoning his shirt and stepped out into the narrow hallway. He was halfway to the kitchen when he heard voices raise in greeting.

"JoJo! Harrison!"

"Heya, monkey-boy! Where the hell were you last night? You and I were supposed to hang out." Joe's tone was teasing. There was the sound of a scuffle, then good-natured laughter.

_Monkey-boy?_

"Ugh, sorry, JoJo. I-I was... real busy last night." There was an embarrassed cough.

"'Busy', hunh? I bet there was a pretty face involved."

"Jeez, JoJo..."

_It can't be._

"Gavin, please... the name? You know I've been trying to erase that nickname from Joe's vocabulary."

"M'sorry, Harrison."

_Gavin!_ Sandy flattened himself against the wall. Of all the dumb fucking luck, one of the friends that was coming over to visit and cook with them was same guy who had fucked him senseless last night. Sandy scowled and tried to will away the warmth that fluttered in his belly at the sound of Gavin's voice.

_Stop it,_ he chided himself. It had been nothing but a really good fuck. Okay, the best fuck he'd ever had in his life, but it still didn't mean anything.

He knew he couldn't wait in the hallway much longer, but he lingered for a few more moments.

"Cut the kid a break, Har," Joe's tone was teasing. "You know Gav and I go waaaay back, and some habits are hard to break. That's a lotta bags there, kiddo - you feeding an army? Yanny and Doug called - the baby's sick and they can't make it, so there's just the four of us tonight." Sandy heard the rustle and crunch of grocery sacks being placed on the kitchen island.

"Aw, that's a shame they can't come. You guys haven't seen the baby since right after she was born, have ya? She's real cute. Anyways, I never met your friend before - this is the guy you've been tryin' ta get here forever, right? I dunno if he eats like you an' I do, or if he's all polite an' shit like Harrison. It's gonna be fun cookin' for someone new!"

There was a chuckle, obviously Harrison's. "You're going to have your work cut out for you, Gavin. Sandy is a rather particular eater."

A bag fell to the floor with a thump, followed by silence.

"S-Sandy?" The name was spoken breathlessly, eagerly, and the flutter in Sandy's belly turned into a knot and tightened.

_Shit_. He might as well get this over with. Sandy took a deep breath and entered the room. "Sounds like one of our chefs have arrived," he said as casually as he could.

"'Bout fucking time," Joe commented snidely. "Did you manage to get some more beauty sleep, Princess? Sandy here had a _late_ night."

Gavin's gaze focused on him, and Sandy saw a flurry of emotions cross his handsome face - joy, hurt, anger, confusion.

Harrison smiled at him. "Ah, there you are, Sandy. I'd like you to meet Gavin Sonnier - he's a very good friend of ours, and has known Joe for years. Gavin, this is Sandy Jennings. He's been my friend and colleague for many years, and we finally got him to come to Grand Bahama with us this time!"

Sandy stuck out a hand. Gavin stared at it for a second, glanced over at the other two men and then looked up at him. Their eyes locked, and an unspoken agreement passed between them. Gavin swallowed, then shook the proffered hand.

"H-hi," he said. "Glad ta meet ya."

"Same here," Sandy replied. He made himself let go of Gavin's hand and walked over to perch on one of the island stools. He turned to Joe. "Did I hear you say your other friends aren't coming tonight?"

Joe nodded while he rummaged in the refrigerator for a couple of bottles of beer. "Yeah. Their kid's sick, and they didn't want to leave her with a babysitter." He handed beers to Sandy and Gavin, and popped the cap on his own bottle. "My other friend Bernie was supposed to come too, but he can't make it either."

There was a snort from Gavin as he unpacked the contents of his bags. "Are ya surprised, Joe? I betcha Bernie has a hot date. Or a hot card game."

"Or both! Nah, I'm not surprised. I would've been surprised if he showed." Joe poked through the packets on the island counter. "Shrimp, scallops, conch... whatcha makin', Gav? You're gonna make cracked conch, right?" He nudged Sandy with an elbow. "Gavin's an awesome cook, and he makes some of the best conch on the island. That place I took you to earlier this week for conch? It's total crap compared to Gavin's."

Having tasted Gavin's conch the night before, Sandy silently agreed.

Gavin dug lemons and limes out of the bag. "M'gonna make ceviche, an' yeah, m'gonna make cracked conch too." He took out three jars and set them on the counter. "I made up some new dipping sauces too - I think you'll like 'em." He glanced at Sandy, his expression carefully neutral.

Sandy stared at the jars. He knew what was in them. His dick knew too, and reminded him exactly what they did with those sauces last night.

"In fact," Gavin continued, "you guys get ta eat the newest dish on the menu at Blue Holes."

Harrison put a hand on Gavin's shoulder. "Does this mean..?"

Gavin nodded and smiled widely. "M'finally gonna work there! I covered a shift there the other day an' the manager called me in this afternoon ta come an' cook for him. I made a coupla things, but he really liked my cracked conch with these three sauces. An' he hired me!"

"That's wonderful!"

"Awesome, kiddo!"

Beer bottles clanked as they toasted Gavin's news. Sandy joined in the toast, and he gave Gavin a small nod when their eyes met. The young man had worked hard to get a position in the restaurant, and Sandy admired his determination.

Harrison prepared a marinade for their steaks while Gavin unwrapped all his parcels, and then Harrison went out on the terrace to light the grill. Sandy watched Gavin while he cleaned and cut the shrimp, conch and scallops into bite-sized pieces, and then he swiveled his stool toward Joe. "So, you two have been friends for a long time?" He indicated Gavin with his beer bottle.

Joe grinned. "Yeah, me an' Gav grew up on Eleuthera, and we shared a place when we decided to both move here to Grand Bahama to get jobs in the casino." He held out a fist to Gavin, who bumped it with his own fist.

"Yeah, then he met Harrison," Gavin continued, "an' they both would come an' visit every time Harrison had vacation time. When I heard about this house bein' up for sale I told 'em about it - I mean, why spend all that money on hotel rooms when ya can have a beautiful place like this for keeps?"

Joe nodded. "And my honey agreed, so here we are." The two bumped fists again.

This was getting better and better, Sandy groused to himself. His one-night-stand not only knew his friends, but was BFFs with Joe and was apparently the one responsible for them all being here in the first place. He decided God must be a woman, and must be laughing Her ass off right about now.

"So Sandy... are ya enjoyin' Grand Bahama?" Gavin asked casually. He scooped the prepared seafood into a bowl and squeezed in the juice of several limes. He then moved on to dicing onions, peppers and a mango.

Sandy took a swig of beer. "It's all right."

"Don't mind him, Gavin," Harrison said as he came back into the kitchen. "He's been a very reluctant guest. We did manage to get him to the casino a couple of times, though, and we took him to Lucaya Caverns and Gold Rock Beach today."

Gavin's knife halted, and he let out a choked laugh. "The b-beach is real pretty, isn't it?" He giggled and returned to his task, mixing all of the chopped ingredients together and adding some fresh herbs.

Sandy grunted in reply and knocked back the rest of his beer. _Little shit._

While preparing the cracked conch Gavin asked Sandy questions about his work and his life in Richmond, and since it was perfectly reasonable that Gavin would ask those sort of questions of a newly-introduced friend-of-friends, Sandy felt compelled to answer them. It was strange, though, to be doing the whole "getting to know you" thing - Sandy didn't "get to know" people as a rule. It was especially strange to be doing this with someone he'd been so intimate with the night before, because usually he never gave personal information to people he fucked. They were generally lucky if they knew his name. But there he was, telling Gavin about the small publishing company that his father had founded, and how he and Harrison had managed to keep the company successful by combining traditional publishing with the global reach of the Internet. He shrugged when Gavin asked him about his interests and what he did in his spare time; not so much from a desire to withhold the information but that there wasn't really anything to tell.

"Ah, Gavin, I'm afraid Sandy doesn't understand the concept of spare time," Harrison interrupted, answering for Sandy. He took the steaks out of the refrigerator along with some sliced vegetables and set them on a platter. "He works all the time. In fact, this is the first real vacation he's had since-"

"Harrison." Sandy glared at his friend, and the uttered name held a warning.

Harrison met that glare evenly, then lifted a slim shoulder to concede defeat, if only temporarily. "Well, Sandy, all I can say is I'm glad you're here." He picked up the platter and went outside once more.

Further questions were mercifully curtailed by the flurry of final dinner preparations. While Gavin and Harrison finished cooking Sandy and Joe set the dining room table and opened a few bottles of wine, and soon the four of them were seated and passing platters and bowls around the table.

Sandy eyed the ceviche suspiciously. It was essentially raw seafood, and while Sandy enjoyed sushi Gavin didn't exactly look like an _itamae_. He took enough to be polite and handed the bowl over to Harrison. He loaded his fork and took a cautious bite.

_Holy shit._

He stared at the plate, speechless. The seafood was incredibly fresh, and it tasted amazing - there was tartness from the limes, heat from the peppers and onions and a tease of sweetness from the mango. Sandy nudged Harrison with an elbow and took the bowl back so he could put more on his plate.

"Ya like it?" Gavin watched him spoon a generous serving next to his steak.

Caught red-handed like that, Sandy could only nod and watch the little shit look smug.

"Are you done hogging the ceviche there, pal?" Joe held out his hands for the bowl.

Sandy passed it across the table wordlessly, picked a piece of conch from its laden platter and moved his hand toward the whisky sauce. Gavin coughed, and when Sandy looked up their eyes met. A studded eyebrow raised as Gavin looked pointedly at the piece of conch.

Sandy raised an eyebrow of his own. Was the brat _daring_ him to have the whisky sauce? Fuck that noise. He took the bowl, dunked the tidbit completely in the sauce and popped it into his mouth. _Oh, fuck, it tasted even better tonight._ His eyes slid shut.

"You all right, man?"

He opened his eyes to see Joe watching him with great amusement.

"For a second there I thought we were gonna need to give you and that sauce some privacy."

"Fuck off," Sandy mumbled around his mouthful of conch.

Joe reached over and tried some for himself. "Wow, that's really good."

Gavin looked pleased. "Try the mango-pepper one - that one's my favorite."

Joe complied, and promptly groaned. "Holy shit, Gav."

"Need some time alone with your sauce, Joe?" Sandy tossed a cigarette at him.

Joe took the bowl of mango-pepper sauce and held it protectively. "Dude, I'm just glad you don't want this one, 'cause I'd have to fight you to the death for it." He dipped a finger in the sauce and held it out to Harrison.

Harrison tasted the proffered finger. "My goodness, Gavin, I think these sauces will require a warning label." Harrison looked at his partner and his best friend and laughed when he saw them clutching their respective sauce bowls.

Gavin grinned when Joe offered Harrison another taste, and while Sandy watched them he fleetingly wished he hadn't pretended that he had just met Gavin. What a different evening it could have been... maybe he would have fed Gavin this time, felt that studded tongue lapping at his fingers while he offered Gavin different morsels from the platters in front of them. A couple enjoying a meal with their best friends, spending an evening together, looking forward to a different sort of feast later on.

Sandy blinked and stared at the bowl in his hands. Where the hell had that train of thought come from? A couple? What the fuck?

He put the bowl back on the platter and gave his attention to his steak and seafood. trying not to notice Gavin's eyes on him.

Harrison was now trying the other sauces. "I actually like the tequila-lime one best myself. It's very clever, Gavin, having all three sauces to choose from. I can certainly see why they would want this dish on their menu - it's a wonderful appetizer."

"Thanks!" Gavin helped himself to some of the conch. "But ya know what? It gets even better! While I was cookin' for the manager, the executive chef came in an' I got ta meet him. He really liked my food an' that's when both of 'em decided ta put my conch dish on the menu as an appetizer!" Gavin was practically bouncing in his seat. "It's Howard Tysen, Harrison - he's the guy who won _Chef Wars_ a year or so ago an' he had his own TV show! He's a celebrity chef, an' he liked what I made!"

"That's wonderful, Gavin," said Harrison. "He might be a good contact to have down the road."

Gavin nodded. "He said I had a lot of promise, an' that he was gonna 'take me under his wing' an' teach me his techniques. Think of all the cool stuff I'll learn from him!"

Sandy frowned. "But this guy is only going to teach you his way," he said. He then added without thinking, "Last night you said you wanted to go to a culinary school and get proper training."

Three heads spun his way.

_Oh, shit.  
_  
Harrison was gaping, Joe was smirking and Gavin was a bright red.

"Oh, ho HO!" Joe crowed, smacking his hand on the table. "The truth comes out! So, Gav... you were 'busy' with our Sandy last night, were you? Pretty damn busy, judging by the way Mister I-Don't-Know-What-The-Fuck-You're-Talking-About snuck in the house eaaaaarly this morning without his shoes." He cocked his head and gave Sandy the once-over. "He _is_ pretty, I will give you that. How'd you like that tongue stud, Sandy?"

"Shut the fuck up," Sandy growled, his cheeks burning.

"Ooooh, look at him blush! So, who was on top? Normally I'd say Sandy, but you're an aggressive little shit, Gavin."

"Shut the fuck up, Joe." Now it was Gavin's turn to growl.

"Enough." Harrison's voice cut across the rising din. "Joseph, that is none of your business. Obviously Gavin and Sandy were not aware of our mutual acquaintance when they met. And they were entirely within their rights to withhold that information from us, even when they recognized each other when Gavin came in tonight. I'm sure it was precisely because they anticipated you would react like a 12-year-old that they felt the need to hide the fact of their previous encounter from their closest friends."

Gavin turned an even brighter red and stared at his plate.

Sandy rolled his eyes and sighed. Harrison was taking a Tone, and acting like a prosecutor who'd gotten surprised during a cross-examination. What was he supposed to have done, thrown an arm around Gavin and declared, "We've already met, and oh, by the way, I was at his house all last night, getting fucked to within an inch of my life?" He shot his best friend a _well-you said-you'd-be-happy-if-I-met-someone_ look, which was met with an elegantly arched eyebrow that denigrated his entire attempt at subterfuge. Then a twinkle appeared in Harrison's eyes, and he winked at Sandy.

He was forgiven. For now, anyway.

Joe wouldn't even look at Harrison, and he mumbled an apology.

Harrison picked up a flaky morsel of conch and smiled. "I guess I can assume then, Gavin, that you created this whisky sauce for Sandy - I can taste the Lagavulin in it. I was wondering how you came up with the idea of using that particular whisky." He dipped the conch into the sauce and ate it. "It is quite spectacular."

Gavin nodded, a blush still high on his cheeks. "We met at Aqua Vitae, an' that's what he was drinkin'."

Sandy was glad he left out the bit about the cherry stem.

Joe barked out a laugh and slapped the table a second time. "See? Jazz! I was _right!_"

"Joseph."

Joe poked at his steak and mumbled again, this time something about people not being able to take a friendly teasing.

"Sandy, you had something so delicious _created_ just for you! Your cooking is exceptional, Gavin, although I do agree with Sandy's inadvertent remark - you will get a much more rounded education from a culinary school." Harrison glanced around at his fellow diners, two of whom were still staring sheepishly at their plates, and clapped his hands. "Lecture's over, let's finish this wonderful meal!"

"Thank Christ," Sandy replied, and reached for the platter of conch.

After a few awkward minutes conversation began to flow again and the next two hours passed with surprising ease. The food was excellent, as was the wine, and while they lingered over Gavin's dessert of guava bread pudding with sauce - a duff, Sandy learned - Sandy looked at the empty plates in front of him. He couldn't remember the last time he'd eaten so much, or so thoroughly enjoyed everything that was put in front of him.

"Hey Harrison, I thought ya said Sandy was a picky eater," Gavin commented from across the table, pointing at Sandy's empty plate with a duff-laden fork.

Sandy scowled at him. "I already said it was good, brat, don't rub it in."

The cocky smile was back. "Just sayin'."

When they finished, Harrison announced that people who cooked shouldn't have to clean up, and he asked Gavin to help him put away the grill. The two men went out to the terrace, leaving Sandy and Joe to deal with a table and counter full of dirty dishes.

"I'll wash," Sandy said, and he started picking up plates. "You know where all this shit goes, I don't."

"Gee, thanks, pal." Joe started piling dishes on the counter while Sandy filled the sink and began to wash them. "You know he's just going to take everything out and put it away the way he wants it."

Sandy snorted. "You really are whipped, you know that?"

"Dude, I didn't see you shutting him up. And I'm not the one who was walking... shall we say... _delicately_ this morning." Joe's grin was positively shark-like. He nudged Sandy with an elbow. "What do you want to bet that Harrison is giving our boy a Talk out there while they're taking care of storing the grill? I gotta say, man, you must have hit some serious buttons with Gavin - I've never known him to do a one-nighter with anyone - even when he thought he was into girls."

Sandy's stomach clenched. He did not want to think about Gavin with a woman. Or with anyone else, for that matter.

_Stop it. It was just a one-off.  
_  
"Hey, Sandy?" Joe's voice lost its teasing tone and became quieter. "I know Gav's a big boy and all that, and he probably went after you - he _is_ an aggressive little shit after all, but... he's not like the guys I usually see you with. Don't hurt him, okay? He's my best friend."

Sandy grimaced. He probably already had hurt Gavin, judging by the expression on the younger man's face when they had been "introduced". But he put a damp hand on Joe's shoulder and said, "Okay." He rinsed the last couple of dishes and put them on the drainer for Joe to dry.

Joe nodded. "Thanks, man." They finished up the dishes and were wiping down the counters when Harrison and Gavin came back in to the kitchen.

"All cleaned up?" Harrison nodded approvingly when Joe bowed and waved at the expanse of immaculate granite. "Very good. Well, since it's just us and it's not terribly late, why don't we head into Freeport and enjoy ourselves at the poker tables for the rest of the evening?"

"Yeah, baby!" Joe did a little happy dance. "There's a Texas Hold 'Em" tournament tonight, but I figured we couldn't go since we had company."

"Count me out," Sandy said.

Harrison eyed him appraisingly, then turned to Gavin. "Will you join us, Gavin?"

Gavin glanced at Sandy, then shook his head. "Thanks, but I think I'll just head back home. I had a long day today, an' I hafta work two shifts for the next coupla days until they re-work the schedule at Loco-Motion. But this was a lot of fun! M'glad we got ta get together." He gaze flicked back over to Sandy, then returned to his friends.

Joe enveloped him in a bone-crushing hug. "I'm glad too, monkey-boy," he said, and ruffled Gavin's hair. "And congrats on the new job! Pretty soon we'll be seeing _you_ on TV!"

"Yes, congratulations, Gavin." Harrison held out his arms for a hug. "Just remember what we said about school, all right? Joe and I will probably be back in July, we'll make sure we have dinner at Blue Holes so you can cook for us there!"

"Awesome!" Gavin lagged back a bit while Harrison and Joe went out through the front door, and then he walked over to Sandy and held out his hand.

Sandy took it, and they shook hands for the second time that evening.

_This is so fucking bizarre.  
_  
"M'real glad I met ya, Sandy," Gavin said softly. "Take care, okay?" He tilted his head up and brushed his lips against Sandy's.

The contact was brief, but it was enough to set Sandy's pulse racing. "Yeah," Sandy managed. "You take care, too." He realized he was still holding Gavin's hand.

Gavin realized it too, and a tiny corner of his mouth turned up. He let go of Sandy's hand and followed the others toward the driveway.

Sandy shut the door and took a deep breath. He then grabbed two bottles of beer out of the fridge and headed for the terrace, walking down the small stone steps that led to the lower patio where he had spent most of his afternoons. He heard the sputter of Gavin's scooter being started, followed closely by the rental car.

Alone, finally. Sandy settled on the lounge chair and set his beers on the table, then he fished his cigarettes out of his shirt pocket and lit one. He took a deep drag and exhaled, savoring the calming flow of nicotine as it seeped into him, then cracked open the first bottle of beer and took a long drink.

What a clusterfuck. He'd let himself get seduced last night by those amber eyes, that perfect body and that wicked, eager mouth. And that tongue stud. God, that tongue stud. It was supposed to have been a one-time thing, something that no one would ever know about and he was supposed to just go home to Richmond tomorrow and have everything go back to normal.

_Yeah, right. Normal._

Gavin was _not_ supposed to be the most incredible lover he'd ever had. He was not supposed to be the best friend of _his_ best friend's partner. And Sandy was not supposed to be wishing that he wasn't leaving tomorrow.

He inhaled another lungful from his cigarette and pinched the bridge of his nose.

"Ya left while I was sleepin'. Didn't say goodbye or nothin', ya jerk."

TBC...


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5, where Sandy is justly accused of asshattery.  
**

~.~

_"Ya left while I was sleepin'. Didn't say goodbye or nothin', ya jerk."_

Sandy looked up to see Gavin standing next to his chaise. Moonlight and the glow from the accent lighting on the patio illuminated his youthful, handsome face, and Sandy saw the same anger, confusion and hurt that had been there earlier. "Would it have made any difference if I had said goodbye? I still would have left."

Gavin sat down on the edge of the cushion, facing him. Without thinking, Sandy shifted his legs over to allow him room.

"It woulda been nice if ya'd said goodbye, even if ya didn't wanna stay the night. Just leavin' like that, it was like I was a whore or somethin'."

Sandy shook his head while he took another drag off his cigarette. "You know it wasn't like that, and I don't think of you that way. I just don't... stay."

Gavin frowned at him. "How am I supposed ta know that when ya didn't say nothin'? So if m'not a whore I guess ya think m'some little kid who can't handle a one night stand? M'not. I knew what I was doin'. I knew ya were a tourist, but I wanted ta be with ya anyway."

Sandy blew smoke off to the side. "Why? Both Gary and Joe told me you don't do one-nighters. Why me?"

"I-I dunno. You drew me." Gavin reached out to briefly touch Sandy's hair. "You're the most beautiful man I've ever met. Ya took my breath away when I saw ya in Aqua Vitae. An'-"

Sandy snorted. "Beautiful. Hmmph."

Gavin gave a tug on the lock of hair under his fingers then let it go. "Puhleeze. Would you have met up with me at the beach if ya didn't like how I looked? But there was other stuff too, the way ya teased me, how ya talked to me that night at the bar. I knew I wanted ta fuck ya after you bought me that kiddie drink, an' I didn't care that you're only here on vacation." A smirk made its way to his lips. "You wanted me too, Sandy, almost right from the start."

Sandy raised an eyebrow. "A little cocky, are we?"

The smirk deepened. "I saw your face after I tied that cherry stem for ya, an' I saw the way you watched me at Loco. You wanted me just as bad." Gavin traced the geometric design on the chaise cushion with a fingertip. "Ya... liked it, didn't ya? The stuff we did?"

_Oh god, yes_. "You know I did." There was no point denying it. Sandy had made way too much noise last night to be able to pretend otherwise.

A real smile briefly flitted across Gavin's face, but it didn't stay there. "How come ya pretended ya didn't know me tonight?" He shifted closer, resting one hand on the cushion on the other side of Sandy's legs.

Sandy's heart began to thump painfully in his chest. "I wasn't expecting you to be one of the friends they were having over tonight. I was...surprised, and didn't want all the questions from them - you saw how Joe was."

Gavin laughed at that. "Yeah, I was surprised too." His laughter trailed off, and his brow furrowed again. "That hurt, y'know. You treatin' me like a total stranger after all the stuff we did last night, on top of the way ya left. Do ya always act like a jerk ta people you have sex with?"

"You don't pull any punches, do you?" Hearing it stated so baldly made Sandy realize that yeah, it _was_ pretty shitty. He was silent for awhile, then admitted, "I guess I do."

"Why? So ya don't get close ta anyone? Just fuck an' leave?"

Sandy's head jerked up at that, and he stared at Gavin.

Gavin's frown softened. "That's it, isn't it. That's all you know."

Sandy looked away.

"I wanna ask ya a question, an' after tonight's bullshit I think I deserve an honest answer." Gavin waited until Sandy met his gaze. "Did ya wanna stay with me last night?"

"I don't need this shit." Sandy started to sit up, but was stopped by Gavin's hand on his chest.

"Ya didn't answer me." Gavin trailed his fingers along the buttons of Sandy's shirt, letting a few of them slip beneath the fabric to rest against Sandy's bare skin.

Sandy's breath hitched at the touch.

"Did ya wanna stay?" Gavin's fingers moved against his skin, pushing the fabric aside enough to rub over a nipple.

"Yes, damn you," Sandy growled, and he hooked a hand behind Gavin's neck and pulled him close for a bruising kiss.

"I thought so," Gavin murmured when their mouths pulled apart. "I hoped so." He brushed his fingertips against Sandy's lips. "I wish ya had."

Sandy kissed him again, slowly this time, and then he rested a hand along Gavin's neck and rubbed his thumb across a glistening lower lip. "I'm... sorry." The words came out awkwardly, but he meant them.

"You should be," Gavin whispered, "but I'll take your apology." Sandy groaned when Gavin drew his thumb into his mouth and gently sucked on it.

Sandy withdrew his thumb and sought Gavin's mouth again, and his tongue pushed between parted lips to roll and slide sensuously against the metal ball in Gavin's tongue. Sandy felt the chaise cushion dip as Gavin shifted and straddled him, and eager fingers were soon undoing the buttons of his shirt. "Easy on the buttons, brat," Sandy gasped while Gavin nipped along his jaw. "I lost three of them on my other shirt last night. I liked that shirt."

Gavin laughed, and the puffs of warm breath at his throat made Sandy shiver despite the warm night air. Sandy tugged at the hem of Gavin's polo shirt and when Gavin pulled back and raised his arms Sandy pulled the garment off and tossed it on the patio. He skimmed his hands over Gavin's now-bare chest and brushed his fingers over Gavin's nipples, letting his nails drag lightly over the hardened peaks.

Gavin's indrawn breath was a soft hiss. "Mmmm, that feels real good... I think I know where m'gettin' pierced next."

Sandy wholeheartedly agreed with the idea of Gavin having pierced nipples. He sat up and bent his head to suck at a currently unpierced one, enjoying the way Gavin's body arched against him in response.

Gavin pushed him back against the cushion and started kissing his way down Sandy's body, his nimble fingers unfastening Sandy's jeans and tugging them off. Moments later he was lying between Sandy's legs and hungrily licking Sandy's dick.

But Sandy had other ideas. "W-wait," he managed. Gavin paused and looked up at him, and Sandy reached under Gavin's armpits and hauled him up to rest against his chest. "It's my turn," he murmured while he pulled at Gavin's shorts. Gavin quickly shimmied out of them and let Sandy bring him up to straddle Sandy's chest.

"Your turn, hunh?" Gavin's grin flashed white in the semi-darkness, and his erection bobbed inches away from Sandy's face.

"My turn." Sandy pulled Gavin's hips closer to take Gavin's dick into his mouth, and Gavin gasped and clutched at the top of the chaise for balance. Sandy let his hands roam over the firm curves of Gavin's ass while he sucked on Gavin's hardened flesh, and Sandy enjoyed watching the younger man's expressions change as he pleasured him with his lips and tongue. He reached for the sunblock, and little grunts of pleasure escaped Gavin's lips when Sandy slowly pushed slicked fingers into him. The grunts became louder and mixed with moans, and soon Gavin was shuddering and coming into Sandy's mouth. Sandy swallowed Gavin's release, and then he withdrew his fingers and quickly coated his own aching erection. Gavin scooted back down on the chaise and then suddenly Sandy's dick was enveloped in tight warmth.

_Holy shit._ His eyelids fluttered shut.

"Oh, yesssss," Gavin wriggled on top of Sandy's hips, and then he raised himself up and slowly came back down. "Sannnndy," Gavin moaned. "Fuck, you feel sooo good..."

Up, down, Up, down. It felt so damn good to be sliding in and out of that perfect ass... so hot, so tight. And the noises Gavin made were just as arousing. Moans, gasps and grunts accompanied every thrust of Sandy's hips, and Gavin breathlessly, repeatedly told him just how good it felt to have Sandy's dick inside him. Sandy had never had such an eager, responsive lover, and it was intoxicating. He pulled Gavin down for a long, tongue-tangled kiss, and when Sandy felt the nudge of an awakening erection against his stomach, he slid his hand between their bodies to grasp Gavin's hardening length.

"Ngh, no," Gavin pulled back and batted his hand away. "I want ya to watch me." He wrapped his hand around his erection and began to slowly stroke himself while he returned to riding Sandy with a steady, forceful rhythm. "Watch me come."

Sandy didn't need to be told; he couldn't take his eyes off of Gavin. It was sexy as hell to watch Gavin pleasure himself in the shadowy moonlight while Sandy continued to fuck him. Gavin's hand moved faster, and then he threw his head back and shouted Sandy's name as he came, and his release spattered onto Sandy's chest.

The sensual show sent Sandy over the edge. He bucked under Gavin, his hips arching up, _up_ while his orgasm ripped through him and then he collapsed back onto the chaise, panting.

"Sandy," Gavin breathed. He was still straddling Sandy's hips, slowly rocking as he came down from his own climax. "Mmmm, Sandy...that was awesome."

Sandy wasn't really capable of talking just yet. His hands roved over trembling, sweaty thigh muscles, sliding back to caress the ass that still pressed so close against his body, still gripped him and kept him buried in its snug warmth. It felt incredible... _he_ felt incredible.

Gavin shifted to lay on top of Sandy, chest to heaving chest. "Fuckin' awesome."

Sandy agreed, and he trailed his fingers along Gavin's spine while the warm ocean breeze tickled their still-sweaty skin. Their mouths met in a deep, languorous kiss.

"Mmmm." Gavin raised himself on his elbows. "We're all sticky."

"And your point is?"

Gavin got up and tugged at Sandy's hand. "Let's go wash off. Come in the ocean with me."

"The ocean? Are you fucking nuts? You do realize it's dark out here."

Gavin laughed and pulled at his hand again. "We saw well enough ta fuck, and the moon's nice an' bright. C'mon, let's go skinny-dip in the ocean. It's real warm. C'mon, please?"

Sandy muttered about showers being better, but he let Gavin lead him down the stone steps to the beach. They crossed cooling sand and waded into the ocean until the water lapped at their chests.

It _was_ still warm. Gavin swam around him and laughed as he splashed Sandy with an armful of seawater. A furious splash-fight ensued for several minutes until Sandy ended it by dunking Gavin under the waves. Gavin shot up out of the water, sputtering, and shook himself like a giant dog. Sandy laughed at him.

Gavin smiled and waded over to him. "You look so amazing when you laugh, Sandy," Gavin said, and he twined his arms around Sandy's neck and gave him a lingering kiss. "I get hard just lookin' at ya, you look so sexy."

"You're ridiculous." Sandy kissed Gavin back, sucking at a plump lower lip while he pulled Gavin close against him. Sure enough, Gavin was hard again.

So was Sandy.

Gavin reached down and curled his fingers around Sandy's erection, stroking him lightly. "Sandy," he murmured against Sandy's mouth, "fuck me again."

"Bed this time," Sandy said in between rough kisses.

"Okay."

They ran over the beach toward the house, stopping only long enough to scoop up their clothes and grab the sunblock before they made their way into Sandy's bedroom. Sandy pushed Gavin down on the bed and soon his dick was buried deep inside Gavin, driving into him while Gavin noisily urged him on - _Harder, Sandy, faster!_ It was raw, rough and passionate, and they kissed and bit each other while they drove themselves to a pounding climax. They lay tangled together, exhausted, and Sandy barely managed to draw the sheet over them before they fell asleep.

~.~.~

Sandy was having the most delicious dream.

_Warm lips were ghosting over his skin, covering his back with kisses. Then a hot, wet tongue dipped along the hills and valleys of his spine, lapped across his shoulders and traced the contours of his ears._ _Smooth fingers delved into the cleft at the top of his ass and slowly pressed inside him._

The dream was so vivid and detailed, and fuck if it wasn't sexy as all hell - Sandy could feel himself getting hard.

Then teeth closed around his earlobe and bit down.

Sandy's eyes flew open.

"Good morning," Gavin drew Sandy's earlobe into his mouth and gently sucked on it.

"Morn-ahhhh..." Sandy felt Gavin's fingers leave him, and he groaned when the fingers were replaced by Gavin's dick. "God, you're a h-horny little shit."

Gavin smiled against the back of his neck. "Can't get enough of you," he replied as he settled himself against Sandy's back. "Feels good?"

"F-fuck, yeah." _This_ was what would have happened yesterday morning if Sandy hadn't been an ass - waking up together, having a lazy morning fuck. Gavin took his time, and after equally lazy orgasms they lay together and kissed and watched the morning sun creep across the bed.

Their indolence was interrupted by a knock on the door.

"Excuse me, Sandy? I'm sorry to disturb you but we're going to have to be ready to leave for the airport in two hours. I'm starting breakfast now - I'm assuming that Gavin is with you, since his scooter is still out front."

Gavin smothered his laughter against his pillow.

Sandy rolled his eyes. "Thanks, Harrison. We'll be out in a bit."

There was a second knock on the door. "Dudes, what is it with you two and sand? Wait - I don't think I want to know. Kinky bastards."

"Fuck you, Joe."

They heard Joe's laughter fade into the kitchen.

Gavin rolled onto his side to face Sandy, his own laugher evaporating. "I wish we had a little more time. M'glad, though, that we had last night. An' now." He leaned forward and brushed his lips against Sandy's. "I don't regret any of it."

Sandy ran a finger along Gavin's jaw, and before he could stop himself he said, "You could come back with me." His brain screamed at him, _What the fuck are you doing?_

Gavin smiled. "I can't. I don't have a passport. Besides, what would happen if I came back with ya? Other than fuckin' each other simple."

"You could go to school like you said you wanted to." Sandy ignored the screaming in his head.

Gavin shook his head. "I don't have enough money for that yet."

"But I-"

"No." Gavin covered Sandy's mouth with his fingers. "No one is payin' for me. Harrison tried before ta talk me into lettin' him pay for school, an' I told him no. I wanna earn my own way. I don't want anyone payin' for me or nothin'. It's important."

Sandy had to respect that, and he nodded.

Gavin kissed him. "But you can come here an' visit, right? So it's still good." He climbed out of bed. "C'mon, we better get up before they come back an' tease us again."

Sandy showered first, and while Gavin was in the shower Sandy dressed and packed his bags. Breakfast was only a little awkward, since Joe had obviously had a Talking To from Harrison. Harrison did, however, make them both clean the wood floor, and while they swept he told them about the wonderful sand-catching capabilities of a properly used doormat.

All too soon they were locking up the house and loading up the rental car. There was a second round of hugs, and Harrison and Joe got into the car. Sandy walked with Gavin to where he had left his scooter, and when they were out of sight of the car Sandy yanked Gavin against him and kissed him fiercely.

Gavin responded hungrily, and when they broke off the kiss he whispered against Sandy's jaw, "You'll visit some time?"

Sandy nodded, keeping his mouth shut so he wouldn't blurt out something even stupider than his earlier invitation.

"Cool. Take care, okay? An' don't work too hard - Harrison's always sayin' ya work too much."

"Harrison needs to mind his own goddamn business. You take care too." Another swift, hard kiss and Sandy turned and walked back to the car. When he got in the back he heard the tinny rumble of Gavin's scooter and Gavin waved at them as he sped past them and disappeared down the access road.

Joe started the car, and Harrison glanced at Sandy. "Ready to go, Sandy?"

"Absolutely. The sooner we go, the sooner my life can get back to normal." Sandy lit a cigarette and stared out the window for the rest of the ride.

TBC...


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter Six, where Sandy begins to miss a Certain Monkey...**

~.~

Sandy pushed the manuscript away, took off his reading glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose. This was his third attempt at trying to read through the damn thing, and it wasn't because it was a poor submission. The opposite, actually, and Sandy knew that his inability to focus on the manuscript was his fault, not the author's.

It wasn't even his fault. It was Gavin's fault, damn him.

Sandy swiveled his chair away from his desk to face the glass outer wall of his office and stared at the James River. It seemed like Gavin was all Sandy could think about these days. _These days?_ He snorted and fished in his jacket for his cigarettes. His mind had been on the little shit ever since he'd returned to Richmond a month ago. He lit up, not caring that it was technically against the non-smoking laws - it was his goddamn building and the only person who was close enough to his office to complain was his secretary, and she smoked more than he did. He inhaled, feeling the nicotine begin to seep into his bloodstream and calm him.

How could he feel this way? So..._obsessed_ over someone he barely knew? Yes, the sex was fantastic - more than fantastic - but the truth was that he had known this young man for a grand total of four days. Not even that, if you counted the fact that they had spoken with each other for all of five minutes on Tuesday night and had not even seen each other on Wednesday. So it amounted to two evenings, two passion-filled nights. How could Gavin so thoroughly embed himself in almost every waking moment of Sandy's life in that short a time?

And God, the brat was there, all right. At dinnertime Sandy would pick through his prepackaged meal and remember every delicious thing Gavin had made, which would also make him remember the first night when they had fed each other, licking and sucking those delicious sauces off their bodies. Then he would sit in his living room and flip through the channels on his television, not really seeing anything at all. A cooking show would flash on the screen and Sandy would remember deft fingers breading conch and preparing ceviche, which led to remembering those same fingers stroking him, caressing him, slipping inside him. Which then made him turn off the television and drink several glasses of Lagavulin while he pleasured himself in the darkness, remembering whisky-brown eyes and a wicked, studded tongue.

Shaking his head to clear it, Sandy took a deep drag off his cigarette and blew a cloud of smoke at the glass in front of him. He had to do something; he was worse than useless this way. He needed to get Gavin's ass here in Richmond, here with him. That impulsive invitation he had blurted out during their last morning together had turned out to be more genuine than Sandy had ever imagined, and while he was glad of Gavin's lucky break there was a part of him that hoped that Gavin was feeling the same way and missing him too. Missing him enough to come back with him this time.

_"I wanna earn my own way. I don't want anyone payin' for me or nothin'. It's important."_

Sandy had to figure out a way to get Gavin to come back with him to Richmond and go to school here...and _not_ be the one paying for his tuition. But then pay for it anyway. Sandy had more money than he knew what to do with, between having a successful company, the inheritance he'd received from his father and a ridiculous six-figure amount from Sanderson's life insurance policy. And while he respected that Gavin wanted to earn his own way, Sandy didn't want to wait that long.

"Excuse me, Mister Jennings, just wanted to bring in your mail."

Sandy glanced back to see his assistant set the packet of the day's mail on his desk. "Thanks, Lauren." He rolled his chair back around and started to work his way through the pile -donation appeals, charity event invitations, industry newsletters and a couple of magazines. He set the letters aside, picked up the issue of _Modern CEO_ and skimmed over the coverlines, stopping when he reached the third listing.

_Not Just Salary: Using Innovative Benefits to Lure Talent to Your Company (Page 23)._

Sandy turned to page twenty-three and began to read.

About halfway through the article, he smiled.

~.~.~.~.~

Sandy came back into his office and set his weekend bag down next to his desk. Lunchtime had been spent upstairs in his top-floor apartment, packing for his trip, and now all he had to do was ensure he had everything else he would need. He double-checked his briefcase, making sure his passport, plane tickets and the key to Harrison's house were safely tucked away.

There was a soft tap at the door, and Sandy looked up to see Harrison in the doorway, folders in hand.

"Do you have a minute, Sandy? I have papers for you to sign as well as the other documents you wanted."

Sandy waved him in, indicating the chair in front of his desk. "You have the tuition program ready to go live?" He sat down in his chair.

Harrison nodded. "Yes, that's one of the items that needs your signature." He placed a pile of tagged documents on Sandy's desk. "Here, here and - " he flipped a few pages and pointed - "here, please."

Sandy picked up his pen and began scrawling his signature.

Harrison sat down in the chair. "There's been quite a buzz going around the building ever since you made the announcement three weeks ago," he said. "The employees are very excited - it's an extremely generous benefit, Sandy. I know of several people who said this new program will allow them to send their child to college, and they wouldn't have been able to without it." He tilted his head while he watched his friend sign the papers. "Even Joe is going to sign up at the community college in the fall. I have to ask you, though...what if Gavin still doesn't want to come back with you? And please don't insult my intelligence by trying to deny that you did all this for him; to give him a way to come here but earn his own living."

Sandy shrugged. "If he refuses, then we still have a kick-ass benefit for our employees, one that will make talented people want to come work for us. It's a good move for the company regardless of whether or not Gavin accepts a job offer. But I needed to have it be already in place, Harrison, and be a company-wide employee benefit. The little shit was very stubborn about not wanting anyone to pay his way."

"He is a very independent young man. Not unlike someone else I know."

Sandy finished signing all the copies and set them aside, and then he started poking through the other documents in the folder. "Are those sponsorship forms in here as well?"

"No, that's in this envelope." Harrison handed it to him. "That paper clipped on top is the form to set up our company as Gavin's work sponsor - I filled out all the pertinent information, I will need it signed by you and then I will notarize it. I also put in a work visa application that he will need to fill out as well as an application for a green card."

"Excellent." Sandy signed the sponsorship form and then put the envelope in his briefcase. "Thank you, Harrison, you've been a big help with all of this."

Harrison smiled widely at him. "You're most welcome. I truly hope you can get him to come - I've been trying to talk him into moving here for a few years now." He winked at Sandy and remarked, "I guess what we needed was to have him meet _you_. Just imagine how things might have been if you'd come with us the first time I invited you," he teased.

Sandy snorted. "He would have been underage."

"Oh my, I hadn't thought of that. I guess there is something to be said for procrastination, then." Harrison noticed Sandy's weekend bag on the floor. "Can I drive you to the airport?"

Sandy opened his mouth to say no, but then he reconsidered. "Sure, why not? Let's go early and get a drink at the airport bar first, I probably owe you a few." He fetched his jacket and then picked up his bag and briefcase.

"Indeed, quite a few. Well then, we can toast to your hopefully imminent success. Shall we go?"

The airport was a half hour drive, and then the two best friends spent the better part of another hour enjoying the bar's selection of single-malt whiskies. When it was time for Sandy to head over to the gate Harrison raised his glass. "Bring him back with you, Sandy."

Sandy touched Harrison's glass with his. "I intend to."

~.~.~.~.~

Three days later Sandy and Harrison were back in the same bar, whiskies in hand.

"What do you mean, he wasn't there?" Harrison asked.

Sandy sipped his Laphroaig. "Apparently Mister Celebrity Chef left Blue Holes a month ago and opened his own restaurant in Washington, DC."

"And he took Gavin with him."

"Yeah." Sandy downed the rest of the glass and signaled to the bartender for another. "According to Gavin's friend Gary this guy said he's going to open two more high-end restaurants here on the East Coast, and he was promising Gavin that if he came with him he would be put in charge of the next one that opened. The DC place - Divine - opened days after everyone left Blue Holes, and Gary thinks the other two are supposed to be in New York and Miami. He took a huge chunk of the cooking staff with him, including Gavin."

"Oh, my! Gavin will be an executive chef? I can perfectly understand why he would jump at the opportunity." Harrison touched Sandy's hand. "I'm sorry, Sandy, that your trip didn't turn out the way you were hoping it would."

Sandy barked a short, bitter laugh before taking a generous swallow of his refreshed drink. "It does seem like an amazing opportunity. The only problem, though, is that all the friends on the island are more worried than happy."

Harrison leaned forward and frowned. "How so?"

"Gary said there's a rumor going around that the mass employee swipe was done mostly out of revenge against the owner of Blue Holes. And he said one of the chefs who stayed behind claimed What's-his-name had made that same promise to _him -_ and a few other people as well. So now everyone's worried that he made it up to get the good people to go with him." Sandy ran his finger around the rim of his glass. "Gary made a point of telling me he didn't like the way this guy had been eyeing Gavin."

"Oh, my." Harrison was no longer sounding excited. His expression was what Sandy liked to refer to as Harrison's "Battle-Lawyer Face", and people (Sandy included) did not want to mess with Harrison when he had the Battle-Lawyer Face on. "I'll look into this right away. I assume you are going to visit this new restaurant?" Harrison asked for the bill and pulled out his wallet.

"Damn straight I am," Sandy replied, and he finished the remainder of his drink. "You think you can find out what's going on by tomorrow night?"

"Absolutely. Can you drive? I can get started on some of my phone calls on our way back."

"Absolutely." Sandy tossed some money on the bar to cover the tip and picked up his bags. Harrison was already into his second phone call by the time they reached the car, and while his friend continued to talk Sandy pulled out his cell phone and made a dinner reservation at Divine for Friday night.

~.~.~.~.~

"Seven-thirty reservation for one?" The maître d' ran his finger down the page of his reservation listing and then smiled widely. "Oh yes, here we are. Welcome to Divine, Mister Jennings, please come this way."

Sandy surveyed the main dining room while he followed the man to his table, and he grudgingly admitted that the place looked spectacular. Warm wood panels layered and interlocked on the walls, and alcoves were created along the sides of the room by frosted glass panels and high-backed leather booths. Another, larger glass panel dominated the center of the room, water gently trickling down from the ceiling into a pebble-filled pool below. Small tables surrounded the glass "waterfall", each illuminated by clusters of tiny, sparkling lights. It was modern and elegant, and judging by how packed the place was, extremely popular.

Sandy was seated in one of the smaller alcoves near the back, and when the waiter came to take his drink order he mentioned that he was an acquaintance of Chef Sonnier.

"Oh, you know Gavin, sir?"

"Yes. And I would be grateful," Sandy slid a folded fifty toward the young man, "if you would let him know that his friend Sandy would like him to cook for him tonight. Whatever he would like to make."

"No problem." The waiter pocketed the bill with a grin. "I'll let him know, and I'll be right back with your drink."

Ten minutes later, the waiter returned with a glass of Laphroaig and a small plate. "Here's your drink, sir, and Gavin asked me to bring you this to start." He set the plate in front of Sandy and continued, "He said he'll be serving your entrée, but I'll keep an eye on your glass."

Sandy thanked him, took a generous swallow of his drink and dubiously eyed his plate. A grilled portobello mushroom cap lay atop a zig-zagged drizzle of red wine sauce, topped with a sprinkling of gorgonzola cheese and fresh basil. Along the edge of the plate, words were piped in the same wine sauce. He peered at the writing.

_I don't care if you think it looks funny. Eat it. G.  
_  
Sandy snorted. _Bossy little shit._ He picked up his knife and fork and dug in, barely suppressing a groan when he ate the first succulent bite. Before he knew it the plate was empty and it was taking a great amount of effort to keep himself from licking it clean. Fortunately before his resolve could weaken the waiter came to take the plate and bring him a fresh glass of whisky. He sat back and sipped the amber liquid, watching the other diners and wondering what would be for dinner.

"So ya liked it, hunh?"

Sandy looked up, and there was Gavin, holding a laden plate and wearing a smile that would power a small town. He was immaculate in his chef's whites, and Sandy felt a flutter of warmth in his belly that had nothing to do with the whisky. "It was all right," he replied.

"Liar. There was nothin' but sauce on that plate when it came back." Gavin set Sandy's entrée in front of him. "Can I sit with ya for a little while? I managed to sneak a little break." When Sandy nodded he slid into the leather bench across from him and loosened the top button of his chef jacket. "I think you'll like this too; I made ya a nice filet mignon with jumbo lump crab on top, an' I did a little whisky sauce ta go over - they don't have the Lagavulin ya like but I had Rick get me a glass of what you're drinkin'. There's also roasted fingerling potatoes an' fresh grilled baby asparagus." Gavin sat back in the booth, took a sip from a glass of water that he had brought along and grinned at Sandy, his eyes gleaming. "Wanted ta show ya I can cook other stuff besides seafood."

"Crab is seafood."

"Shut up an' eat."

And Sandy did just that. His steak was cooked perfectly, and was beautifully complemented by the crab meat and sauce. Sandy soon found himself dipping forkfuls of potato and asparagus through the sauce as well. He loaded up his fork with a bit of everything and held it out to Gavin, who promptly ate the proffered forkful.

"Mmmm, that came out good. An' that sauce tastes real good with the steak." Gavin leaned forward, resting his arms on the table. "It's soooo awesome that you're here, Sandy - but how'd ya know where I was? I didn't get a chance to let Joe know that I came here, it all happened kinda suddenly."

Sandy finished his mouthful of tender steak. "I found out two days ago when I flew to Grand Bahama Island."

"Flew? Wait, you mean you-"

"Yes, damn it, I went there, and you were gone. Gary told me all about this place." Sandy decided that he would leave out the 'I went to bring you back with me' part for now, and let his gaze roam over the young man seated across from him. It was a little strange seeing Gavin this way, all in white chef attire instead of cargo shorts and a polo shirt, or black jeans and a mesh shirt. His piercings were still there, hoops and studs incongruous against the formal jacket. Gavin seemed comfortable and confident, and to Sandy he was eminently fuckable.

"You went ta visit me." Gavin looked ridiculously pleased.

Sandy offered him another bite. "Listen. I need to talk to you about all this, but I know we can't right now since you're working. Can we meet after you're done tonight?"

"Sure, we can do that. Talk, hunh?" Gavin's eyes took on a predatory glint. "Ya drove up here ta eat an'...talk?"

"I did, actually. It's important."

Gavin blinked. "Uh, okay. You're right, I really can't sit here much longer. I get done at-"

"Ah, there you are, Gavin." A tall, dark-haired man walked over and stood next to Gavin's seat. "Richard told me you were cooking for a friend tonight, and I thought I would come over and say hello." A piercing ice-blue gaze swept over Sandy, appraising him. The man held out a hand. "I'm Howard Tysen, owner of this modest establishment."

"Sandy Jennings." Sandy reluctantly shook his hand. Even without what he knew, he didn't like this smug bastard one bit.

"And you are one of Gavin's friends? Here in Washington? Gavin, I had no idea you were so international." Tysen ruffled Gavin's hair. Gavin glanced up at him and grinned.

Sandy's eyes narrowed; it was obvious to him that Gavin still idolized the celebrity chef. "I live in Richmond, as do several other friends. You can imagine we were surprised by his sudden... relocation."

Tysen smiled. "Yes, well, this marvelous opportunity came up," he waved a hand at the filled, busy room, "and I simply had to bring my best people with me." Another ruffle of spiky chestnut hair.

Sandy took a casual sip of his Laphroaig. "This place is certainly doing well. How are those other two locations coming along?"

Both men looked at him; Tysen with cautious speculation and Gavin with surprise.

"You seem to know a lot about my endeavors, Mister Jennings, I'm flattered. My other two restaurants are... coming along nicely. They should be opening in a few months." Now Tysen's eyes were narrowed.

Sandy set his glass down on the table and began to circle its rim with a forefinger. "Are they now? Well, that's interesting, especially since I happen to know that you have no occupancy permits on file for either city." His finger kept orbiting the glass edge. "You also have no business licenses in either New York or Florida."

Gavin's mouth dropped open, and he looked up at Howard Tysen with a puzzled frown. "But Chef, you said-"

"Mister Jennings is mis-informed, Gavin," Tysen interrupted smoothly. "Now, I really need you to get back to the kitchen. It was nice that you wanted to prepare something special for your friend, but we have other diners to take care of." He placed his hand on Gavin's shoulder.

Sandy couldn't help but notice the possessiveness of the gesture, and he had to quell the urge to jump up and tear that hand off of Gavin. He also had to quell the urge to beat the shit out of Howard Tysen.

"Uh, okay, " Gavin replied, still looking back and forth between the two men. "I'll be there-"

Tysen's hand squeezed his shoulder. "Now, Gavin."

"O-okay." Gavin rose from his seat and buttoned his jacket back up. "Sandy, I-"

"Enjoy the rest of your meal, Mister Jennings. Come along, Gavin." Tysen gave the younger man a gentle shove toward the kitchen. He stood at the door for a moment, gave Sandy a long, challenging stare and then left to follow Gavin.

Sandy picked up his fork and finished eating. This was going to make for an interesting evening - Gavin now knew that something was awry, and although Sandy was sure that Howard Tysen would be full of reassuring excuses and promises, the seeds of doubt had been planted. Now Sandy just had to wait until Gavin was done for the night so he could get him alone to talk.

Maybe fuck too, judging from the hungry gleam that had been in Gavin's eyes - there was no doubt in Sandy's mind that Gavin had missed him as well. But as pleasurable as he knew that would be it was more important to let Gavin know he had been mislead and deceived.

The waiter appeared at his side, a small plate in hand. "All done, sir? Here's a little dessert that Gavin put together for you." He took up the empty dinner dishes and set the dessert plate on the table in front of Sandy, and as he did so he leaned closer and murmured, "He asked me to tell you that he should be able to leave by eleven, and he'll meet you in the hotel lobby."

"Thanks." Sandy slipped him another fifty.

The waiter took the bill and looked at it with dazed wonder. "Wow, t-thanks, glad to help." He shoved the bill in his pocket and headed toward the kitchen.

Sandy smirked. The kid had probably gotten the biggest tip of his life tonight, and Sandy hadn't even gotten his bill yet. He investigated his dessert; it looked very similar to the guava duff that Gavin had made that night they had all eaten together, except this time there were strawberries folded in the sweet dough and it was drizzled with chocolate and whipped cream. Sandy glanced at his watch while he ate - it was a little after nine, so he was going to have to kill at least two hours before he could meet up with Gavin.

He took the last bite of strawberry duff and then leaned back in his seat, well sated and full. It had been an incredible dinner, and once again Sandy found himself facing empty plates; normally he would eat only half of his meal when Harrison and Joe would drag him out to dinner. He could get used to this, he thought. With any luck, he would.

Sandy signaled the waiter for his bill. He paid it, adding a generous regular tip, and left the restaurant. He then headed over to the hotel's lounge and was pleased to discover that they had a bottle of Lagavulin Sixteen on their shelf, so Sandy settled himself at the bar with a glass of the smoky, amber liquid. There was a baseball game being broadcast on the one of the half dozen plasma televisions in the room, so Sandy spent the next hour and a half sipping Lagavulin and watching the Washington Nationals get spanked by the Philadelphia Phillies.

The game ended, and Sandy went out onto the outdoor patio and smoked a few cigarettes before coming back in and paying his tab. He had a nice warm buzz from the whisky and there was another kind of warmth building in his groin at the thought of being with Gavin soon. Maybe they could fuck first and talk later, Sandy thought while he walked out into the lobby. And maybe he could fuck Gavin while he was still wearing the chef's jacket...

He groaned and leaned back against the dark wood panels of the lounge entrance. He really needed to stop his wandering mind - he was going to be having a serious conversation with Gavin, and doing so with a raging hard-on was not going to be helpful at all. He took a few deep breaths and checked his watch.

Eleven fifteen.

He frowned. Maybe Gavin was running late getting the kitchen cleaned up. He went back inside the lounge, back out onto the patio and had a couple more cigarettes.

Eleven forty-five found him back out in the lobby and pacing. Still no Gavin.

The sound of Divine's door opening across the lobby made Sandy look up.

It was Rick, his waiter.

"Wait a minute before you close that door," Sandy called, and the young man waited while Sandy came over. "You guys are all closed up, right? Cleaned up and done for the night?"

Rick nodded. "Didn't Gavin come out yet? All the other chefs and cooks left, except for Chef Tysen... but he's always here longer since he has to do the day's paperwork and stuff."

Sandy shook his head. "No, he didn't. Are you the last one to leave?"

"Yeah, it was my night to supervise closing." Rick looked back into the restaurant, then again at Sandy. He hesitated a moment, then pushed the door open. "You can go in if you like. If Chef sees you I'll say that you left your wallet behind, that's happened before and I haven't gotten in trouble for it."

Sandy clapped the young man on the shoulder - he had definitely earned his hundred-and-fifty dollar tip. "Thanks, kid," he said, and he slipped back into the now-empty restaurant.

The large dining room was silent save for the trickling of the water that coursed continuously down the huge glass centerpiece. The accent lights for the fountain were still on, and cast strange flickering shadows about the room while Sandy made his way through the maze of tables and chairs.

He pushed open the kitchen door and stepped inside.

"Gavin?"

Just inside the room he stopped, shocked at the sight that greeted him.

Half the lights were off, and Gavin and Howard Tysen were against the far wall of the kitchen, their bodies pressed intimately close. The older man was kissing Gavin passionately, one of his hands sliding into Gavin's hair. The other hand was shoved inside the front of Gavin's white chef pants, and the rhythmic motion of Tysen's arm left no doubt as to what he was doing.

Sandy turned and pushed the kitchen door back open.

"S-Sandy! Wait!"

Sandy kept walking, through the restaurant, through the hotel lobby and through the revolving door of the hotel's entrance. It was raining now, and the heavy droplets poured down on Sandy as he walked to his car.

He got in and drove away.

TBC...


	7. Chapter 7

Sandy's mind was whirling as he navigated the rainy city streets, trying to get back on to the interstate highway that would take him back to Richmond. The rain and his jumbled thoughts were distracting him, and he kept missing He was shocked at the intensity of the emotions churning within him; anger was perfectly understandable, disappointment was too. But _jealousy_ was a whole new experience for Sandy, and so was the clenching ache in his chest that he eventually identified as _hurt_. Hurt when Gavin never showed up in the hotel lobby. Hurt and jealousy when Sandy saw just _why_ Gavin hadn't showed, because he was too busy being held against the wall by that smug bastard Tysen, being kissed and groped by him.

Held against the wall...

_Wait a minute._

Sandy cursed when he missed his turnoff again. Stupid fucking Washington and its maze of one-way streets. He went around Columbus Circle _again_ and went back for yet another attempt.

_Something's not right._

Exasperated, he pulled over into an empty parking lot and cut the engine. Sandy's hands kept their death-grip on the steering wheel while he worked through what he thought he had seen.

Okay, Gavin had been pressed up against the wall and Howard Tysen had definitely been passionately kissing him, gripping Gavin's jaw with one hand while the other hand had roamed intimately beneath the waistband of Gavin's pants. But what had _Gavin_ been doing? Sandy thought a little harder. Gavin's hands had been on the older man's shoulders... but they had been _pushing_ at those shoulders, not wrapping around Tysen's neck and pulling him close.

Had he been pushing Tysen... away?

_Oh fuck,_ he thought. The more Sandy re-played the sordid scene in his head the more he realized that Gavin had not been acting like a responsive, _willing_ participant - and Sandy knew exactly how responsive Gavin normally was. Dread pooled in his stomach, cold and sour.

_Fuckfuckfuck_.

Sandy started the car, and tires squealed as he turned around and headed back toward the restaurant. The rain was coming down in earnest by the time Sandy turned back onto K Street, and it fell in heavy sheets that made visibility very poor. Sandy was not looking forward to going back out in that rainy mess and getting soaked. But he was going to go back, he grimly promised himself as he approached the hotel. He was going to march back into that restaurant and get Gavin and beat the everloving shit out of Howard Tysen. And then he-

_There he is._

About a block ahead of him, Gavin walked alone in the downpour, his head bowed and his hands shoved in his pockets.

Sandy slowed down while he drove up close, and then he pulled over and rolled down the passenger-side window. "Gavin. Get in the car."

Gavin stopped walking, and Sandy brought the car to a halt. The younger man stared at him in confusion, his hair plastered against his face by the driving rain. "Sandy? I don't understand... I thought-"

"Never mind what you thought. Get in the car."

"But-"

"_Gavin_." Sandy barked out the name. "I was wrong. I know that asshole was forcing himself on you. Now get in the fucking car."

Gavin opened the door and climbed into the car.

Sandy rolled the window back up and then he gripped the steering wheel. "Are you all right? Did he...hurt you?" he asked in a tight voice. God help Howard Tysen if he had - Sandy was ready to come down on him like the wrath of God.

"Nah, m'okay." Gavin shook his head, spattering droplets of water all over the dashboard. "He kissed me an' was touchin' me like ya saw - an' it was fuckin' gross! - but I managed ta break loose right after ya left an' then I decked the son of a bitch."

Sandy let out the breath he had been holding. "You punched him?" He waited for a few cars to pass by and then he eased the car back into the driving lane.

"Yeah. Broke his nose, I think." Gavin stared out the window. "Bastard deserved it - who the hell does he think he is? Did he think just cuz he's famous I'd drop my pants an' bend over for him?" His fists clenched. "Asshole. I guess what he really wanted the whole time was ta get in my pants. An' you were right - he was really only showin' me how ta do stuff _his_ way." His hand moved like he was about to reach out toward Sandy, but then stopped and stayed in his lap. "Thanks for comin' back, Sandy. M'sorry, m'gettin' your car all wet."

"Forget about that." Sandy replied. "And don't let that asshole mess with your head - I'm positive that he brought you for your talent, and he figured if he could fuck you as well it would be all the better. You're an amazing cook, Gavin." He successfully made the turnoff this time, and Gavin craned his head to look back.

"Umm, where are we goin'?"

"My apartment."

"But you live in Richmond."

"Yes."

Gavin looked back again. "Umm, I have my money an' my stuff in a rented room. An' Chef Tysen has my passport an' papers."

Sandy shook his head. "We'll go back tomorrow for your things. Right now you're coming home with me - I don't want you anywhere that creep can find you. I'll have Harrison take care of the passport issue." He glanced over at Gavin. "Somehow I don't think Howard Tysen will want his adoring fans to know that he sexually harasses his male employees, and Harrison is fucking scary when he goes into Battle-Lawyer mode."

Gavin laughed, and Sandy felt a rush of warmth at the sound. Gavin's hand moved again, and this time he reached across the center console and took Sandy's free hand. "Thanks, Sandy. M'glad ya came tonight. Real glad."

Sandy said nothing, but he didn't release Gavin's hand. Instead, he twined their fingers together and headed for the nearest bridge to Virginia.

Washington, D.C. to Richmond, Virginia is normally a two-hour drive, but Sandy was having none of that and shamelessly sped down Interstate 95 in spite of the deluge. He and Gavin spoke little, but their hands remained clasped tightly together. About halfway down Gavin nodded off, and while he slept Sandy pondered the situation. As obnoxious as the situation had been, Howard Tysen's asshattery had actually made the first half of Sandy's mission fairly easy. Gavin was in his car, coming back home with him. Now he just needed to get him to stay.

He activated his headset and called Harrison. Once his friend acknowledged being fully awake Sandy gave him a brief run-down of what had happened and asked him to go to D.C. in the morning and get not only Gavin's things, but his passport and visa as well.

"I'll leave first thing in the morning," Harrison said, his voice distant and buzzy through the earpiece. "Leave his key and address on your office desk, and I'll fetch them on my way. One of my cousins actually works for the police there - I'll give him a call and ask him to accompany me to the restaurant. It will be an unofficial escort, of course, but it will help put the fear of God - and prosecution - in Howard Tysen."

"That sounds like a good idea, although I have to tell you that you alone will probably make him piss his pants. You are fucking scary, my friend, when you go Momma Bear on someone."

"Really?" Harrison sounded quite pleased. "I must say that you are no slacker in that department either, Sandy. I think Mister Tysen should count himself quite lucky that you did not have to go back into that restaurant."

Sandy grunted in agreement.

"I'll touch base with you once I have everything settled, and Joe and I will come by your place in the evening so we can see you both. Have you had a chance to really speak with Gavin, Sandy?"

"Not yet." Sandy glanced over first at Gavin's sleeping form, then at their entwined hands. "I'll play it by ear. Right now I want to get him home and dry and away from that creep."

"Spoken like a true Momma Bear. I'm back off to sleep, then. Good luck, Sandy."

"Thanks, Harrison." Sandy disconnected the call and continued to drive south on the interstate. Within another hour he was within Richmond city limits, and Sandy gave Gavin's hand a squeeze. "Wake up, sleepyhead."

Gavin's eyes blinked open, and he released Sandy's hand and stretched, mouth opening wide in a face-cracking yawn. "Wow, I slept almost the whole way." He shivered. "Ugh, m'still all wet."

"You can shower once we get to my place, and I'll dig out something for you to wear. We're almost there - you want me to get you anything to eat? My fridge is pretty empty except for some frozen dinners. And beer."

Gavin raised an eyebrow at him. "Frozen dinners? That's pretty sad."

"Fuck you. Do you want to eat or not?"

Gavin nodded. "Can we get a pizza or somethin'?"

A veteran of alternative no-cooking-involved food sources, Sandy knew of several late-night pizza shops that catered to the college crowd. He called his favorite one and placed an order for delivery.

A few more miles and they pulled up in front of the Art Deco-style building that housed Imagine Publishing. Gavin peered out the window at the ten-story building. "Ummm, this is an office building."

"Yes, it's _my_ office building," Sandy replied, pulling into his reserved parking spot. "I live on the top floor."

"Oh, wow. Cool." Gavin followed him over to the side entrance, and after Sandy punched some buttons on the security keypad they went inside and took the service elevator up to Sandy's office, where Gavin wrote down the address of his rented room and set his key on Sandy's desk. Then they returned to the elevator and rode up to the top floor, and Sandy unlocked the door and let them in to his apartment.

Gavin looked around at the spacious, modern living space. "What a cool place! That's neat that ya live upstairs from where ya work. Short commute, hunh?" He turned to Sandy. "Hey Sandy, I-"

Sandy gave him a gentle push into his bedroom. "Go shower - my master bath is through there. I'll leave some clothes on the bed for you and by the time you're done the pizza should be here. We can talk then."

"Okay. Thanks." Gavin quickly pressed his lips against Sandy's mouth and then headed into the bathroom.

Sandy waited until he heard the spray of the shower starting, and then he poked through his drawers and pulled out some of his gym clothes. He took off his own damp clothes and changed into a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt, placed another set of clothes on the edge of his bed and walked into the living room to wait for the pizza to be delivered.

~.~.~.~

"Mmmm, this is good pizza!" Gavin stood next to the gleaming stainless steel top of Sandy's kitchen island, attacking a slice of pepperoni pizza. He looked ridiculously small in a pair of Sandy's drawstring gym shorts and one of Sandy's t-shirts. "Feels good ta be in some dry clothes, even if these are a little big. Your shorts come almost to my knees!" He grinned at Sandy and plucked at the shorts.

"You look like you're ten." Sandy noticed a slender piece of leather cord strung with what looked like shells around Gavin's neck and gestured at the necklace. "That's new. What is it, your island souvenir? Some shells on a cord?"

Gavin fingered the leather necklace. "This? Ummm, those aren't shells. They're... your buttons, from your shirt." A faint blush colored his cheeks.

The buttons from the shirt he had been wearing their first night together, buttons that had flown across the room when Gavin had been eagerly pulling his shirt off. Gavin had obviously made the necklace, and something clenched in Sandy's chest as he stared at the three bits of plastic that nestled at the base of Gavin's throat. He tore his gaze away from the memento and commented, "Hunh. I guess they're not going back on my shirt then."

Gavin laughed. "No, I guess not." He reached for another slice and peeked past Sandy while Sandy retrieved two bottles of beer from the refrigerator. "Dude, that is the emptiest fridge I've ever seen in my life. There's only beer in there! Where are those frozen dinners?"

Sandy wordlessly opened the freezer door to display shelves full of boxed dinners. He shut the door, came back over to the island and handed Gavin his beer.

"That's just not right. You have this nice kitchen and then you eat that crap?" Gavin took a long swallow of beer and looked around the room. "An' it's a real nice kitchen, too."

"As you said to me earlier, shut up and eat." While Gavin ate his pizza Sandy revealed what Gary had told him about the whole sorry mess, and what he and Harrison had learned about Howard Tysen's deception.

"Ugh, what an asshole! We all knew he wasn't gettin' along with Mister Cavanaugh while we were at Blue Holes, but that's just nasty, ta take people away for spite. Chef Tysen had told us that Blue Holes was gonna go bankrupt, an' that we were all gonna lose our jobs. Then he told us about his new place, and - well, you know the rest of that story." Gavin grimaced and took another slice of pizza. "I feel stupid."

"You're not stupid." Sandy took a swig of his beer. "The guy played into everyone's ambitions, that's all. I don't know much about restaurants but I gather that being an executive chef is a big deal - you can't be blamed for wanting that."

"It is a big deal. It's the next best thing ta havin' your own place. Sometimes better, really, cuz ya get ta be in charge of the menus and staff and all but don't hafta be the one payin' the bills." Gavin finished his pizza and leaned on the tabletop, his chin in his hands. "This whole thing sucks, though, cuz now I'm out of a job an' I don't think Mister Cavanaugh would hire me back. I know that Chef Tysen told me an' the other guys lies ta get us ta leave, but we left. _I_ wouldn't hire me back."

Sandy's heart started pounding. Here was his chance - the opening was perfect. "About that," he said, "I wanted to talk to you about working at Imagine Publishing. That was my main reason for going to Grand Bahama three days ago."

Gavin looked at him, puzzled. "You flew there ta offer me a job at your company? But-"

This time it was Sandy who put his fingers on Gavin's mouth. "Wait. Let me get my briefcase and I'll show you everything." Gavin nodded, and Sandy felt Gavin's gaze on him while he went and retrieved his briefcase from the console table near the door. Gavin was quiet and watchful while Sandy pushed the pizza box aside and set several stapled packets of paper on the table.

Sandy took a deep breath and began. "I went to Grand Bahama to try and convince you to come back with me. I figured the best way to do that was to offer you a job, since you were so goddamn adamant about making your own way."

A corner of Gavin's mouth quirked, but he said nothing.

Sandy pointed at the first packet. "There's all kinds of entry-level positions at Imagine; printing and bindery, warehouse and distribution. You can pick whatever you'd like - there's work enough in all those departments for a new person. And this," he pushed the middle packet toward Gavin, "has all the company benefits."

A barbelled eyebrow raised. "Like medical an' stuff?"

"Yes." Sandy said, and then he plunged ahead. "And a tuition program. For college."

Both eyebrows shot up this time. "Tuition? College? Hunh?"

"If an employee or one of their family members enrolls at an accredited school, the tuition is paid for by Imagine Publishing. They're expected to apply for financial aid, but the company pays the balance." Sandy tapped a finger on the third packet. "This set of papers has an application for a visa and a green card. Since you already have a work visa, you can apply for a green card and live here, permanently if you wish."

Gavin reached over and tentatively touched each of the packets. "You brought all this stuff with ya when ya flew there the other day?"

Sandy nodded.

"I think I could use another beer." Gavin hopped up to sit on the stainless steel top of the kitchen island and then he reached for the papers. He scanned the set that dealt with organizing his immigration. "This stuff is so I can get a visa an' work at your company, right? Well, I got my visa already, but Chef Tysen has it."

"Harrison is going to take care of that in the morning," Sandy said while he took two beers out of the refrigerator and handed one to Gavin. "And we have the paperwork ready to file to become your green card sponsor."

Gavin browsed the job description listings and then moved on to the company benefits packet. "So if I work here I can go ta school? Paid for by your company?"

"Yes, and yes," Sandy replied, and he uncapped his beer and took a long swallow. _So far, so good._ Gavin was reading everything and asking questions, so at least he wasn't dismissing the idea outright.

Gavin's eyebrows drew together in thought while he read through the benefits packet and drank his beer. He looked over at Sandy, who was now standing next to him and leaning against the island. "And this is for everybody, right? Not just me?"

The little shit was sharp, but Sandy was more than ready for the expected question. "Yes, it is a company-wide benefit. Joe is actually going to take advantage of it."

"JoJo's goin' ta school? Really? He always wanted to. He was gonna take restaurant management while I took culinary an' we were gonna open a place together. But he couldn't afford it."

"He signed up for a restaurant management program at one of the community colleges near here. They have a culinary arts program too." Sandy stepped closer.

Gavin's eyes went wide. "For real? But- then..."

"You both can do what you planned years ago." Sandy pushed Gavin's knees apart and stood between his thighs. He heard Gavin's breathing quicken.

"B-but how can JoJo go? He doesn't work at your place, Harrison does."

Sandy nodded at the papers in Gavin's hand. "If an employee already has a degree the benefit can be used for their spouse, partner or child. Depending on his behavior, Joe can qualify as all three."

"Heh. I won't tell him ya said that." Gavin put the packet down with the other papers, and set his empty beer bottle off to the side. "So... does your place have a cafeteria? Maybe I can work there. I would have experience for that kind of job, instead of startin' from scratch."

"It does, and you could," Sandy said, and his heart started to beat faster. _He's thinking about it_. _This might work._ He decided to take a risk. "However, there's another, better position available."

"Yeah?"

He lightly touched the buttons that were strung around Gavin's neck. "Personal chef to the CEO. You can see the sorry state of this kitchen, it needs someone in it who knows what the hell they're doing." A wave of his other hand included the pizza box, bare shelves and the already-laughed-at refrigerator.

"Personal chef, hunh?" A small smirk curved Gavin's lips. "I dunno, would that job have the same benefits as workin' in the cafeteria? That tuition program is pretty important." He began to play with the hem of Sandy's t-shirt.

"The personal chef position has even better benefits. It not only includes the tuition program, but there would also be free housing and free fucking."

Gavin laughed "Free fucking? Wow, now there's a benefit." His hands ducked beneath the shirt hem to rest at Sandy's waist.

"It's a reciprocal program," Sandy replied. "I house you and fuck you, you feed me and fuck me. Everyone wins."

Gavin's hands froze in place. "You house me..." He looked at Sandy with wide, dark eyes.

This was the critical point, Sandy thought. Gavin now knew exactly what Sandy was offering him. The younger man was silent in front of him, biting his lip. Sandy couldn't breathe.

After what seemed an eternity to Sandy, Gavin spoke. "Could I maybe do both? Maybe work part-time at the cafeteria while I go ta school? That would give me my own money, an' it would be good practice ta come up with meal choices for a lot of people." His hands began to move again, roving over Sandy's chest. "That way I can be housed, fucked and _paid_." He grinned widely at Sandy.

Sandy's lungs started working again. "You drive a hard bargain," he said, his breath hitching when Gavin's fingers found his nipples. "It's a good thing I like your cooking. And your fucking." He swept the back of his hand over the front of Gavin's borrowed sweat pants, where a healthy erection was already tenting the soft cotton fleece. "Stay with me," Sandy whispered, and then he leaned forward and cupped Gavin's face with his hands. "Live with me." He brushed his lips against Gavin's mouth. "Please."

Gavin's mouth opened under his, and Sandy kissed him like he was drowning and dying of thirst at the same time. He thrust his tongue into Gavin's mouth, re-discovering the tongue stud and tasting the spice of pizza, the malt of beer. Gavin's hands moved to his back and pulled him closer, and Sandy felt Gavin's dick nudging against his belly, so close to his own aching erection. He shifted and rolled his hips against Gavin, and they both groaned at the friction of their dicks bumping against each other through the fleece of their pants. Sandy sought Gavin's neck with his mouth while he dropped his hands to press against the small of Gavin's back, and he rocked against Gavin again.

"Nnngh, Sandy, that feels so good." Gavin dipped his hands beneath the waistband of Sandy's sweatpants to cup his bare ass. "I missed you so much. I missed this so much."

Sandy pressed his lips against the throbbing pulse in Gavin's throat. "You'll stay?" he demanded hoarsely.

"I-I'll stay."

"Good." Sandy captured Gavin's mouth again. He let Gavin's tongue invade his mouth while he worked one of his hands under the elastic of Gavin's shorts, delving a finger into the cleft at the top of Gavin's ass to press against his entrance.

A strangled moan came from Gavin's throat, and he broke off their kiss. "Sandy," he panted against Sandy's lips, "fuck me."

Sandy didn't need to be asked twice. He pulled Gavin off the table and led him into his bedroom, where eager hands tugged at drawstrings, waistbands and shirts as they removed each other's clothes. Gavin flopped onto the bed, pulling Sandy down with him, and Sandy propped himself up on an elbow and feasted his eyes on the lithe, naked body that lay next to his. Gavin's skin was flushed, he was breathing heavily and while Sandy watched the rapid rise and fall of his chest he noticed the glint of lamplight on metal.

"You pierced your nipples." Sandy reached out and touched one of the tiny barbells, and he chuckled when Gavin groaned and drew in a sharp, hissing breath. "Feels good?"

"Ohhh, yeah," Gavin caressed Sandy's circling fingers. "Got 'em done the week after ya left. Nnngh... you should get yours done too. I would love that." He reached up and playfully tweaked a pink nub. "They would look so fuckin' sexy on you."

"Maybe." Sandy was more interested in Gavin's piercings than his own potential ones right now, and he started by kissing the barbell at Gavin's eyebrow. He dipped down to flick his tongue against a nose stud before moving over to Gavin's left ear, where he licked and sucked at the hoops and studs there. Gavin _mmmm'd_ contentedly and began to trail his fingers down Sandy's spine while Sandy continued his explorations.

Sandy took his time, wanting to taste every bit of Gavin's skin. He let his lips travel to the other ear, stopping at Gavin's mouth for a few deep kisses and to feel the roll of Gavin's studded tongue against his. Sandy ran his tongue along the rings and bar in Gavin's other ear, and then he leisurely licked his way down to those little barbells. The noises that were coming from Gavin made Sandy glad his apartment took up the top floor of the building - Gavin was very loud and _very_ vocal in his pleasure and Sandy readily admitted that every gasp, every moan, every shout just made him that much harder. He stopped just long enough to grab a tube of lubricant out of his nightstand drawer, and then he returned to his task, lapping at one of the metal bars while he slowly pushed slicked fingers into Gavin. Sandy's fingers thrust and stretched while his mouth moved to lick the other nipple, and Gavin moaned loudly and threaded his fingers in Sandy's hair.

"Nnngh, S-Sandy... m'gonna come, ya keep d-doin' that. Ohgod..."

Sandy's response was to draw the pierced nub into his mouth and suck on it, flicking his tongue against the metal barbell.

With a cry Gavin convulsed and climaxed. Sandy felt the wet warmth of Gavin's release on his skin, felt Gavin shaking beneath him while he released the sensitive flesh and returned to kissing his way down to the curved barbell in Gavin's navel.

Maybe he _would_ get his nipples pierced, Sandy thought as his lips curved against sweaty, sticky skin. It must feel pretty damn good if just having them sucked could make Gavin come. He reached for the lubricant again, and moments later he was sinking into Gavin, groaning as his dick was enveloped in the incredibly tight warmth of that perfect ass. Gavin wrapped his legs around Sandy's waist and drew him in further, and he pulled Sandy's mouth to his to exchange rough, sloppy kisses while Sandy thrust deep inside him. Muffled moans escaped both their throats as they rocked together, slowly at first but then faster and harder while Gavin breathlessly urged Sandy for more.

_It feels so, so good._ Gavin was bucking and writhing beneath him as he matched Sandy's rhythm, and his hands caressed Sandy's back while his mouth sought Sandy's jaw, then neck, then shoulder. Heat was coiling, building, blazing in Sandy's groin, and when Gavin arched up against him and noisily came again, Sandy followed him into the most intense orgasm he'd ever experienced. Gavin's name spilled from his lips while his body shuddered and strained to go deeper, _deeper_, and as time became fluid around him Sandy realized with a sudden crystal clarity why this felt so different from the other two times he had fucked Gavin.

It felt different because he _felt_.

He loved Gavin.

Time abruptly snapped back in place. Sandy found that he was staring at Gavin, who was a panting, glorious mess beneath him - face flushed with pleasure, hair sticking every which way and a satisfied grin that stretched almost from ear to ear. Sandy's own labored breathing was loud in his ears, and his heart was racing not only from the exertion, but from its new discovery. He reached out and touched Gavin's cheek, words hiding in his throat.

Gavin met his gaze, his eyes warm and cognac-dark. He turned his face to press a kiss on the palm that cupped his cheek, and then he smiled.

"I love you too," he whispered.

~.~.~.~.~

Lips kissing his skin. A wet tongue licking, lapping along his neck and shoulders. Fingers slipping inside him.

_Mmmm, that dream again._

Sandy's eyes opened to morning sunlight that criss-crossed his bed, and he blinked as warm rays gently touched his face. Birds were noisily chattering in the tall oak trees that were outside the building, but somehow they didn't seem nearly as annoying as they usually were.

_Wait, the dream-?_

"Good morning," Gavin murmured against the nape of his neck.

Moments later Sandy felt the delicious burn of a hard, thick length pushing into him. He moaned and leaned back against the warmth of Gavin's chest. A hungry mouth sought his earlobe while Gavin moved inside him, his thrusts slow and deep.

_Not a dream._

Gavin was here; in his home, in his bed, in his body.

Everything was back to normal.


End file.
